Knowledge does take place. And it weighs. At the Faculty of Geography and History of Santiago – the building that was born as the headquarters of the Compostela university, built between the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century – they are proving it the hard way. The load of the 150,000 volumes of its library is too much for the battered building, which has not seen a major renovation for half a century. An engineering report that warned of the “imminent” risk of collapse after the appearance of a huge crack in the floor of the warehouse has forced urgent measures to be taken. The workers are busy dismantling shelves and moving more than 80,000 books to a place that does not endanger the structure. But they are only “palliative care”, “covering the bleeding” of the largest workplace in a historic center that is a World Heritage Site, while waiting for the institutions to raise the necessary funds to undertake the profound rehabilitation that they are crying out for.
“Without our library we cannot have an ordinary life: we cannot survive without paper books.” The still dean of the faculty, Marco García, condenses the importance of the immense fund in these times where it seems that everything can be digitized or in the cloud. In your case, it is not like that. And, not to forget, teachers and students have launched an online initiative where they highlight their favorite work on paper.
But, in addition to the funds, hidden from the general public, the enormous reading room – with its large tables surrounded by old cabinets full of books – is part of the sentimental memory of generations and generations of university students who used it to study, socialize, or forge friendships, while they went up and down to the classrooms or to the no less historic cafeteria, located in front of the Plaza de Abastos -according to the guides, the second most visited place in Santiago after the Cathedral-, and which, while awaiting reform, has closed its doors to accommodate more than 27,000 books displaced from the library.
Another 8,000 volumes have found their place in the basements of the Faculty of Philosophy – on the other side of the University Church, a deconsecrated temple that today functions as an exhibition and events hall – while the remaining 45,000 have been distributed by the Faculty itself. reading room. This has also forced it to close until mid-November. And, meanwhile, the dozen library workers travel kilometers between the three spaces to respond to the demands of teachers, students and researchers.
“In addition to being a heritage building, a work of art, we are the largest work center in Almendra”, the core of the historic city. “1,500 people come here every day, more than half of them undergraduate students,” García summarizes. The Faculty of Medicine, located at the northern entrance to Praza do Obradoiro, still exceeds those numbers but, although within the monumental area, it is only a few meters outside the Almendra, which avoids any dispute for the title.
The house on the roof
The underlying problems of Xeography and History are not new. “It rains in the offices,” García relates with the disbelief of someone who has seen how three-meter-wide walls ended up becoming a “strainer”: “the mortar dissolves and the water seeps between the stones.” The last major reform was carried out in the 70s and was “quite unfortunate.”
Seen in perspective, that work did not spare any of the errors typical of the time: replacing oak doors with conglomerate ones, putting aluminum in the cloister, creating spaces with dimensions prohibited by current regulations… “Like the building It has three heights, but each one is equivalent to two floors, mezzanines were made.” And there, despite it being a heritage property, all the classics were used: sintasol, firospan, rubber “which is not exactly fireproof…”.
In 2016, the drafting of the Master Plan began to rehabilitate the main civil building of a monumental area full of religious constructions, starting with the Cathedral itself. The Consortium, the tripartite entity formed by the City Council, the Xunta and the State to ensure this monumental heritage, finalized the document in 2022. Then, the cost was estimated at around 24 million euros and an execution period of five years: until 2027. However, there are works that can no longer wait.
The maintenance of the infrastructure of the University of Santiago (USC) is the responsibility of the management. Its owner, Xabier Ferreira, is realistic. According to him, “redefining” the library within the framework of the Master Plan would cost 6 million euros, which is the budget it has each year to attend to the 700,000 square meters of construction between the Compostela and Lugo campuses. “There are those who say that it is a lot: it is neither a lot nor a little, it is what it would cost.” “We have to start the house from the roof, literally,” confirms García, since this work, he says, would barely solve the problems with the roofs and the tank itself.
Aware that no institution is in a position right now to face such an expense – the Consortium’s investment allocation in 2024 did not reach one million euros and it needs three just to renovate the Conference Center – the USC is working on a new proposal to solve this urgent situation. While waiting to finalize all the figures, Ferreira estimates it at around 500,000 euros. It would be launched in the next year and always in agreement with the dean team, which will be renewed in the midst of this “perfect storm.” The elections are held next week, practically at the same time as the United States presidential elections.
The manager does not want to separate the problem of the property from that of its entire surroundings. “The same thing happens to many others in the historic center: if more resources are not provided, the city has a problem of physical deterioration.” The Faculty of Geography and History is a unique building and that is why it demands the involvement of the three administrations involved. It does not want a solution like the one that the Xunta has just given to the Faculty of Pharmacy, after several years without headquarters and with its students distributed among several centers.
With a cost practically identical to that estimated by the Master Plan for the institution’s old headquarters, the new Pharmacy building will cost 24.5 million euros. The Galician government will contribute twelve in three annual installments and will “allow” the USC – which will also have to provide 2.5 million of its own funds – to renegotiate the payment of another 10 million of its debt with the banking entities.
“Pharmacy is a university and health issue, because it is the only faculty of this specialty in Galicia, but here we are talking about a historic building.” In it, academic needs are combined with the “conservation” of a “very unique” property that also fulfills a function of dynamizing a monumental area taken over by pilgrims: “Without the town hall and the three faculties -Xeography and History, Medicine and Philosophy – we are left with a theme park in the historic center: a food market and some tourists,” concludes Ferreira.
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