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Restoring Spain's historic landmarks

Discover how the revival of key monuments is creating venues and benefitting communities…

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Words by Laura Field

Spain has a rich, complex, often tumultuous history – one that has yielded hugely diverse architecture and engineering feats, from Roman aqueducts to Moorish palaces, medieval monasteries to modern bridges. Indeed, it spans so many eras that landmarks and monuments across the country have inevitably suffered the ravages of time. Many have also been repurposed or augmented – Córdoba’s Mezquita being a prime example, built as the city’s Grand Mosque then converted into a Christian cathedral.

 

Recent initiatives to restore and revive historic structures have been recognised for both their innovation and the importance of their efforts. Here we shine a spotlight on some of the most impressive projects.

Patios de la Axerquía, Córdoba, Andalusia

Over many centuries, houses in Córdoba were built around central courtyards, often containing fountains and plants, to help cool homes in the hot, dry Andalusian climate. The PAX Patios de la Axerquía initiative is restoring patio houses to encourage urban regeneration and social cohesion. By regenerating abandoned properties in the Axerquía district, the initiative aims to create communal living spaces that celebrate Córdoba’s Mediterranean and Moorish heritage. It is also repopulating the city’s historic centre and creating cooling spaces to protect residents from the intense summer heat.

Two blue chairs with a wooden table between them. There are lots of plants surrounding it

Illa del Rei, Menorca

The main landmark on this petite island, lying in the centre of Mahón’s long natural harbour, is a former hospital built by the British Royal Navy in 1711. After the hospital closed in 1964, the building deteriorated. Now, thanks to a collaboration between volunteers of the Illa del Rei Hospital Foundation and Swiss contemporary art gallery Hauser & Wirth, it has been restored and reimagined as a grand modern art gallery and museum.

In the distance you can see a island with some houses on. there is a pier with one boat parked

Monastery of San Pedro de Eslonza, Castile and León

Founded by King García I of León in 912, the Monastery of San Pedro de Eslonza in Gradefes was ravaged under Moorish rule later that century, setting a pattern of rebuilding and ruination. Having enjoyed major restoration in the 16th century, by which time it was a thriving Benedictine monastery, it was then abandoned in 1835. After decades of degradation, a project was launched to reinvigorate the buildings and integrate them into the surrounding landscape of the Eslonza Valley. A key aim was to enable tourists to visit, ensuring the monastery’s legacy, and guided visits now run by appointment from Wednesday to Sunday between July and September.
Ruins left behind, you can see the wood arches of the doorframe

Deba Bridge, Basque Country

The stone bridge over the Deba River, near its mouth between Bilbao and Donostia-San Sebastián, was built in 1866 to link local communities. Now an important historical landmark on the northern variant of the Camino de Santiago, by 2018 the bridge was on the brink of collapse. Thanks to an initiative propelled by local governments, the Deba Bridge was successfully restored and once again connects the communities of Deba and Mutriku.
A wooden pier that lead to small wood boat. Opposite you can see rows of buildings

Besòs Water Tower, Barcelona, Catalonia

Originally built in 1882 to supply Barcelona’s residents with water, the iconic Torre de les Aigües del Besòs (Bèsos Water Tower) is a striking symbol of the city’s industrialisation. Abandoned in 1992, it was neglected until 2010 when a restoration project was launched, taking painstaking care to restore the tower in alignment with its original structure. Two spiral staircases were installed, and today the tower is open to visitors as a cultural centre that promotes and fuses art and industrial heritage, as well as offering spectacular city views.

Glossary

The quality of being able to continue over a period of time, or the avoidance of the depletion of natural resources in order to maintain an ecological balance (Camrbdige Dictionary).

This refers to ‘the variability of living organisms, between and within species, and the changeability of the ecosystems to which they belong’ (The Convention on Biological Diversity).
According to the Responsible Tourism Partnership, ‘Responsible Tourism requires that operators, hoteliers, governments, local people and tourists take responsibility, and take action to make tourism more sustainable. Behaviour can be more or less responsible, and what is responsible in a particular place depends on environment and culture’. The concept was defined in Cape Town in 2002 alongside the World Summit on Sustainable Development.
The process of protecting an environment and returning it to its natural state; for example, bringing back wild animals that used to live there (Cambridge Dictionary).
A movement reducing the distance between producers and sales and consumer establishments to a radius of under 100 kilometres, with the aim of minimising the effects that large-scale industry have on the planet, including soil erosion, water pollution, and habitat loss for wild species.
Being ‘green’ is used to describe actions or initiatives that are conducted in a sustainable way, in an attempt to reduce impact on planetary resource limits. However, the word can be used to describe actions or initiatives that do not actively do this, but rather convey an ethos of being planet-friendly; eg being outside, walking or riding a bike. This can be considered ‘greenwashing’ (when an individual or company paints an action as credibly sustainable when, in fact, it is an action that beenfits them, or that should be considered the bare minimum).