A concerning architectural trend is sweeping across Spain as identical black-and-white striped apartment buildings appear in cities from Vigo to Almería, fundamentally altering the country's urban landscape. These so-called "zebra blocks" feature uniform balconies and ventilated facades that repeat the same pattern regardless of climate, context, or local architectural traditions, spreading rapidly amid Spain's severe housing crisis.
The phenomenon gained widespread attention through the Instagram account @bloque_cebra, created by a group of young architects who have documented over 1,000 examples across Spain. Their project, which receives two million monthly views, has achieved something unprecedented: bringing the debate about architectural quality from professional circles into public discourse. The anonymous creators explain, "We're fed up with the zebra spreading, imposing itself, and becoming normalized." They've even developed a "zebrometer" to measure the degree of "zebraism" in any given building.
The term doesn't define a true architectural style but rather a standardized construction trend where decisions are made based on economic efficiency rather than creative considerations. The formula is simple: dark strips with concentrated windows and anthracite-colored woodwork alternating with light strips of ventilated facades. The result is cloned buildings that could stand anywhere from the Pyrenees to the Canary Islands, completely disconnected from their local environment.
Critics describe zebra blocks as the culmination of a model where architecture has been reduced to mere bureaucratic formality. "This is like fast-food real estate," summarizes the bloque_cebra collective. "Developers building with a system that exists in an Excel spreadsheet, where everything is reduced to efficiency and the architect's work is pushed aside." Architect Iñigo Berasategui from Bilbao's BeAr studio wrote a scathing article in Patio magazine, describing the phenomenon as a plague and "a cacophony of light and dark" representing a world that doesn't embrace noble community values.
Berasategui criticizes that these buildings are "built with their backs to the street, without regard for the neighborhood," featuring interiors where "floors imitate wood, countertops imitate marble, and plastic doors imitate pine." The Garellano building in Bilbao has become a paradigmatic example, where the original design by renowned London firm Richard Rogers was simplified through municipal "adaptations" until it became trivialized. The result is a skyline altered by zebra towers that local architects describe as "traumatic and dystopian."
The phenomenon isn't limited to any particular social class, as zebra blocks appear across all price ranges, from social housing to two-million-euro apartments. "There are social rental zebras and luxury zebras," confirms bloque_cebra, demonstrating that the problem isn't price but the model itself. The criticism targets multiple parties: developers seeking maximum profitability by replicating large-scale projects, municipal governments prioritizing process rationalization, and a precarious profession where many architects are forced to choose between producing zebras or not working at all.
Jorge López Conde, an architect and expert on the New European Bauhaus, warns: "This is a Spanish and unique phenomenon that has major impacts on the built environment. These are buildings that are neither adapted to the climate nor built with local materials." The paradox of zebra blocks is that they're marketed as modern and avant-garde while actually representing the opposite: the absence of architectural determination. "The zebra represents non-choice," explains bloque_cebra. "It's the result of what we call urban passivity."
To compensate for poor exterior design and lack of environmental integration, developers resort to the "zebra package": infinity pools, private gyms, common areas with artificial turf, walk-in closets, en-suite bathrooms, and tiny lounges. "These are amenities meant to make the product more attractive to buyers without necessarily considering residents' well-being," the architects criticize. The problem is exacerbated at ground level, where unlike traditional Spanish architecture that promotes urban life with shops and services on the ground floor, zebra blocks tend to completely close off or leave these spaces empty.
"There are hundreds of buildings with closed ground floors," admits Xavier Vilajoana, president of the APCE developers' association. The result is residential neighborhoods with no street activity where life becomes hyper-privatized within developments. This development starkly contrasts with the VPO housing developments of the 1960s and 70s, to which some compare them. "Those blocks were connected to the place, they were recognizable, they cared about public space, they had dialogue with facilities," recalls bloque_cebra. "They were designed by architects; here there's no one controlling the machine."
From developers' perspective, the defense is pragmatic. "It's a product that works and has customers," argues Vilajoana, who rejects the "zebra building" label and emphasizes that due to the high proportion of prefabricated parts, "the need for labor is lower, and that's the main reason for building in a sector lacking skilled workers." Neinor, Spain's largest developer, insists their designs come from "Spain's best architectural firms" and comply with the 2006 Technical Building Code requirements for higher insulation standards.
However, many architects don't consider this justification for homogenization. "At a time when we talk about adapting buildings to their environment, buildings are built exactly the same – they must be very good if they're identical for Bilbao and Malaga and in every orientation," Berasategui ironizes. The question hanging in the air is clear: What kind of city do we want to build? As the bloque_cebra collective warns, "Construction has impacts that aren't limited to immediate users but extend to the environment, neighbors, and future generations."
The debate over whether zebra blocks will go down in history as an architectural signature of our time or as an urban planning mistake is currently underway. For now, they continue multiplying across Spain, transforming peripheries into a striped jungle where economic efficiency has triumphed over architectural criteria. The long-term consequences of this architectural homogenization remain to be seen, but the growing criticism suggests a reckoning with Spain's rapidly changing urban identity.
