Europe's wunderkind

In the late 1980s, Spain had become Europe's wunderkind: its foreign investment ballooned, its 4% cumulative annual growth was the Continent's highest and, with the help of European Community subsidies, it built $30 billion worth of highways and other public works. No longer did Spaniards have to emigrate north for jobs: their income rose to 79% of the E.C. median. Culturally, Spain became fashionable: the campy fantasies of filmmaker Pedro Almodovar; the sunswept abstractions of painter Miguel Barcelo; the postmodern extravaganzas of architect Ricardo Bofill; the prankish sexiness of fashion designer Sybilla. Madrid promoted itself as the eye of a creative tornado known as la movida, whirling all night long. Novelist Camilo Jose Cela won the 1989 Nobel Prize for Literature. "In the 1960s, we felt like second-class Europeans," says Juan Sanchez-Cuenca, director of the U.S.-affiliated advertising firm Bozell Espana. "In the 1980s we felt proud to be Spanish."