The fox in charge of the chicken coop. The popular saying, which can be applied to a multitude of real situations in 21st century society, also serves to accurately illustrate what has been happening for decades in monumental cities with an undeniable tourist pull, such as Salamanca. That is: let the tourism sector be in charge of recovering battered historical buildings (usually in the hands of the Church, which does not know what to do with them) to convert them, not into a visitor attraction, but into a final destination, into accommodation.
On paper, the idea may seem brilliant. In practice, cities lose opportunities to generate new public attractions, opening their hand to the progressive destruction of heritage. What is happening in Salamanca – in particular, for a decade – follows a model that is increasingly common in the country as a whole, whose greatest exponent is found in dozens of Spanish castles that have liquidated their entire internal history to open the doors to a nice hotel. Perhaps because a defensive building from the Middle Ages can never be a comfortable resting place in the 21st century without sacrificing its guts, that is, without eliminating its past.
The reflection is born from a detailed, extensive and detailed study by the Citizens for the Defense of Heritage association on a specific case, which it has followed for two and a half decades. It is an old 14th century chapel located in the center of Salamanca that has developed the most varied uses (from hospital to cinema to printing press) throughout its long existence and that today, in clear deterioration, will become a modern tourist accommodation with eight apartments, with capacity for a maximum of 32 people.
In theory things look good: the building will abandon its sad and dilapidated appearance, and will finally have a use that guarantees its survival. If we examine the fine print, as the Salamancan collective does, the secondary effects may weigh more: “The opportunity to provide the city with more heritage to be displayed and enjoyed by all will be lost, as well as the possibility of uniting, once again, the bulrush with the cover.”
Because the different uses of the chapel of Our Lady of Mercy and perhaps also the lack of interest in the building on the part of its owner, the bishopric of Salamanca, have gradually stripped it of its hallmarks. The building was founded in 1389 to serve as a hospital for a short period of time. It was also the headquarters of a brotherhood that ensured “helping people condemned to death with whatever temporary aid they needed” until it reached, visibly battered, the 20th century.
The original coffered ceiling no longer existed, the works of art were moved to a neighboring church and, in 1910, worship ceased to be held inside. In November 1914 its decline was completed, when the roof collapsed. Abandoned to its fate by the Church, the hermitage began a long journey through the last century fulfilling the most diverse functions. First, as headquarters for the cultural activities of the Unión Ferroviaria y Obrera union organization; later, as a school and cinema (the San José Cinema became the most popular screening room for several generations of Salamancans) and, finally, as a location for a printing press that developed almost half a century of activity inside.
Asset loss
The intense and disparate activity during a century claimed some of its most characteristic elements. In 1916, the hermitage of Nuestra Señora de la Misericordia lost one of the clearest signs of identity: the recognizable belfry that crowned the baroque façade was dismantled and moved to the new church that was built in another neighborhood of the city. Wounded, preserving only elements and styles from the 16th and 18th centuries, the chapel barely reached the 21st century. But she didn’t do it alone. The Citizens for the Defense of Heritage movement, which was born as an association in 1999, established the denunciation of the situation of the old hermitage as one of its first demands.
The property “has never received the slightest conservation or consolidation action, not even to alleviate the damage caused by the urbanization of its surroundings,” those responsible say. Water—in the form of rain or through underground pipes, in the absence of protection and necessary care—has become its main enemy, as the agent causing the deterioration of its fragile sandstone walls.
In fact, a decade ago, Citizens for the Defense of Heritage promoted the inclusion of the chapel on the Red List managed by the Hispania Nostra organization to give visibility to heritage elements in danger of disappearance. Along the way, the Salamanca group had sent (unsuccessfully) successive allegations to the Salamanca City Council to introduce different measures into the urban planning plan to stop the deterioration of the property: eliminate the current uralite roof, place a door in accordance with the dignity of a 14th century building and, above all, restore the old belfry. However, the administration denied the association’s repeated demands, while the bishopric of Salamanca neither intervened in the building nor knew (as the association points out) very well what to do with the disfigured chapel.
Until the light came. This same year, the institution that owns it—with no ideas on how to preserve the chapel, nor any intention to allocate any financial resources to recover the meaning of the property—presented a project to transfer the building to a real estate developer under that very modern mantra: “ generate wealth.” As? Destining it to the construction of tourist apartments.
Although it may seem surprising, the transformation promoted by the Madrid company Ingesurb, with a planned investment of more than 325,000 euros for the construction of eight tourist apartments, is not so surprising. The same firm had already carried out other similar projects on land or property of the Church for the same purpose. Citizens for the Defense of Heritage do not give credit to the facilities offered to the Bishopric by the Salamanca City Council to make this proposal a reality, since the municipal institution “has not established limitations on this type of establishments.”
Almost thirty cases
Although, without a doubt, the most interesting thing about the public complaint by Citizens for the Defense of Heritage is the reflection it makes on the conversion of the old hermitage of Nuestra Señora de la Misericordia into apartments, extendable to other cities with tourist projection, in the middle of the great housing crisis that today affects hundreds of thousands of Spaniards. The case “is one more example of the decline of cities focused on tourism as a way of locating themselves in the world, without this activity necessarily generating wealth, new jobs, recovering buildings or places for public and collective enjoyment or enabling new spaces for culture and the participation of society,” says its secretary, Jesús Delgado.
The association assures that, in the eighties and nineties, politics was at the opposite end: agreements with owners allowed cities like Salamanca to add more historical heritage and make it available to citizens. “For more than a decade, the municipal policy (of Salamanca) has not contemplated incorporating more assets of heritage interest into its management, despite the logical need to periodically increase the tourist and cultural offer, for the enjoyment of inhabitants and visitors, enabling new spaces to provide content and make up for deficiencies,” he adds.
On the other hand, regarding the use itself, this association – which celebrates a quarter of a century of activity this year – censures its tourist aspect in the current context in which housing is scarce, its price is inaccessible for a part of society. and tourist places contribute to further raising the cost of accommodation in the market. “It is surprising that, despite the fact that the proposed use is clearly questioned in our society due to the perverse effects it has on the real estate market, the Salamanca City Council lends itself so easily,” argues Jesús Delgado, in reference to the light requirements established in the process of transforming the old hermitage into tourist apartments. It does so, in the opinion of the group, because the reform proposed by the Bishopric “will end the bad image that the state of that building reported to the city” and “because it does not want to take charge of the management of more spaces and provide itself with more equipment ”.
The most significant thing about the public complaint by Citizens in Defense of Heritage is that the situation of the old 14th century hospital—that is, allocating a listed building to tourist apartments—“is neither new nor coincidental.” The association has counted thirty similar cases in Salamanca, in addition to new projects underway, such as the transformation for economic purposes of convents and spaces owned by the Church that lacked a defined use.
Even so, this policy is not even exclusive to Salamanca and the panorama is easily identifiable in other cities and municipalities with a pull for the tourism sector. “The administrations are condoning the loss of historical buildings by accepting their conversion into accommodation for more tourists, who have less and less novelties to visit the city in question, especially when visitors do not need to do so between medieval walls,” laments Jesús Delgado. on behalf of the Salamanca collective. In short, a drift through which the heritage will cease to be an object of visits and become, directly, a hotel, apartment, restaurant or cafeteria. But to visit what next?
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