The Frontons in the towns of Spain
11Rectoria de Santa Maria
Gunnar Knechtel Foto

The sport of fronton embodies the identity of the towns and villages that grew up around it.

The marks left on the wall of the court by each strike of the ball are etched in a latent but increasingly mute collective memory. This voicelessness is the result of the progressive exodus in Spain of people from the countryside to the city, a constant emptying of rural areas.

In summer, the grandchildren and nephews of former inhabitants come to reclaim and revive the fronton space, which thereby becomes a kind of strange, architecturally imposing but abandoned monument, a wall that is a silent witness of the history of Spain. The Frontons in the towns of Spain testify to that fact.

Gunnar Knechtel
Gunnar Knechtel
gunnarknechtel.com/