NO.132
Raudal Fuente De La Magdalena / CUAC Arquitectura
Stream of the Magdalena Fountain
ALCALÁ LA REAL, SPAIN
Architects: CUAC Arquitectura (J. Castellano Pulido, R. Cortés Cano, N. Martínez Martínez)
Year: 2009
Area: 140.0 m²
Cost € 2900 / m²
Constructor: TERRA ELVIRA S.L.
Client Citycouncil of Jaén
Financing program: EUROPEAN UNION. FEDER-PLAN URBAN JAÉN
Previous state
Located within one of the most historically significant urban areas, it occupies one of the main terraces of the Roman city and the epicenter of the Umayyad city of Yayyan . Already in the SI the first grotto was created that gave rise to a spring, from where an important religious tradition centered on the cult of water was born and gave its name to the city of Aurgi(Jaén). The development experienced by the city of Jaén between the 11th and 13th centuries led its inhabitants to organize the hydraulic infrastructure that the city already possessed. This space linked to water served as community equipment and later as a container for a water tank for distribution also to private buildings through buried pipes, that is, the streams. The result, the creation of an important infrastructure that was distributed throughout the old town and that contributed enormously to its own urban development.
Despite the modifications suffered, the fountain has maintained throughout its history the primitive architectural configuration, although it is currently offered as a palimpsest of interventions that are complex to read; Planned in Roman times as a grotto from the spring, converted into a nymphaeum with an apse plan, used as a medieval cistern for underground water distribution, and later finished with a monumental portal with a large semicircular arch.
Object of the intervention
The final solution is associated both with the symbolic value to which the source owes its origin and with the need to recover its dimension of public space, this time integrating the interpretative aspects of heritage.
The modifications that the Fuente de la Magdalena has undergone focused on recovering an uncertain original state and the constant decrease in the water table have led to a state of ruin and abandonment.
The Magdalena Fountain has been declared a Site of Cultural Interest and is the setting for the development of the Legend of the Lizard of Jaén, listed by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity and declared one of the ten Intangible Cultural Heritage Treasures of Spain . The project constitutes the last intervention of the Jaén Urban Plan carried out in collaboration between the Jaén City Council and the European Union. The project seeks to advance in the regeneration of this urban area whose monumental and cultural heritage is paradoxically contracted by the great deficits that exist in terms of social cohesion.
Description of the intervention
The Magdalena fountain occupies an open space of ninety square meters, between a row of narrow and elongated houses, dividing walls one from the other and located in the upper part of the historic center of Jaén, specifically in the Magdalena neighborhood. The perimeter of the plant is determined by a symmetrical façade with a large semicircular arch and an interior wall with three sections, two straight and dividing walls with neighboring houses and one semi-circular load bearing.
The project recovers the semicircular staircase that originally resolved the difference in elevation between the roadway and the base of the entrance arch. At the time of the intervention, said staircase was replaced by a retaining wall and a ladder that hindered permeability. The construction of different bars over the years had ended by closing said space to citizens, with the consequent degeneration of its public dimension. The interpretation of this staircase on a higher level, as well as the reform of the most immediate public space are part of the intervention and seek to recover the lost continuity between these public spaces, a continuity that allowed citizens to reach the water.
Raudal Fuente De La Magdalena / CUAC Arquitectura
Stream of the Magdalena Fountain
ALCALÁ LA REAL, SPAIN
Architects: CUAC Arquitectura (J. Castellano Pulido, R. Cortés Cano, N. Martínez Martínez)
Year: 2009
Area: 140.0 m²
Cost € 2900 / m²
Constructor: TERRA ELVIRA S.L.
Client Citycouncil of Jaén
Financing program: EUROPEAN UNION. FEDER-PLAN URBAN JAÉN
Previous state
Located within one of the most historically significant urban areas, it occupies one of the main terraces of the Roman city and the epicenter of the Umayyad city of Yayyan . Already in the SI the first grotto was created that gave rise to a spring, from where an important religious tradition centered on the cult of water was born and gave its name to the city of Aurgi(Jaén). The development experienced by the city of Jaén between the 11th and 13th centuries led its inhabitants to organize the hydraulic infrastructure that the city already possessed. This space linked to water served as community equipment and later as a container for a water tank for distribution also to private buildings through buried pipes, that is, the streams. The result, the creation of an important infrastructure that was distributed throughout the old town and that contributed enormously to its own urban development.
Despite the modifications suffered, the fountain has maintained throughout its history the primitive architectural configuration, although it is currently offered as a palimpsest of interventions that are complex to read; Planned in Roman times as a grotto from the spring, converted into a nymphaeum with an apse plan, used as a medieval cistern for underground water distribution, and later finished with a monumental portal with a large semicircular arch.
Object of the intervention
The final solution is associated both with the symbolic value to which the source owes its origin and with the need to recover its dimension of public space, this time integrating the interpretative aspects of heritage.
The modifications that the Fuente de la Magdalena has undergone focused on recovering an uncertain original state and the constant decrease in the water table have led to a state of ruin and abandonment.
The Magdalena Fountain has been declared a Site of Cultural Interest and is the setting for the development of the Legend of the Lizard of Jaén, listed by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity and declared one of the ten Intangible Cultural Heritage Treasures of Spain . The project constitutes the last intervention of the Jaén Urban Plan carried out in collaboration between the Jaén City Council and the European Union. The project seeks to advance in the regeneration of this urban area whose monumental and cultural heritage is paradoxically contracted by the great deficits that exist in terms of social cohesion.
Description of the intervention
The Magdalena fountain occupies an open space of ninety square meters, between a row of narrow and elongated houses, dividing walls one from the other and located in the upper part of the historic center of Jaén, specifically in the Magdalena neighborhood. The perimeter of the plant is determined by a symmetrical façade with a large semicircular arch and an interior wall with three sections, two straight and dividing walls with neighboring houses and one semi-circular load bearing.
The project recovers the semicircular staircase that originally resolved the difference in elevation between the roadway and the base of the entrance arch. At the time of the intervention, said staircase was replaced by a retaining wall and a ladder that hindered permeability. The construction of different bars over the years had ended by closing said space to citizens, with the consequent degeneration of its public dimension. The interpretation of this staircase on a higher level, as well as the reform of the most immediate public space are part of the intervention and seek to recover the lost continuity between these public spaces, a continuity that allowed citizens to reach the water.
The large semi-circular arch created is closed by a sliding door with two leaves, each 9.20m high and 1.80 wide, located on the inside of the wall. The door is made of 2mm perforated V-shaped sheet steel without internal profiling and hung from a top profile that helps consolidate the existing arch. The result is a light and continuous veil through which images and sounds of the water are filtered, allowing urban continuity between the fountain and the outer street, both day and night when it is closed for control. The fountain reproduces the plant and approaches the idea of a water container, but this time identifying content and container. It is built by 19mm azure glass walls stacked and fixed using transparent resin materials.
From the entrance, the image is reduced to a horizontal plane of glass and water, the limits of which are lost where the perception of the mud walls and stone retaining walls begins. Its height allows a flooded space to be perceived from the outside. Between the sheet of water and the perimeter walls, the glass floor becomes first a staircase and then a staircase, slowly leading us to the opposite end. There, once below the sheet of water (reference to the original level), we discover a space next to a cistern. A large air bubble used as an interpretive space, where the three main flows that distribute the water appear. Here at the end of this short and intense tour begins the history of the Raudal de la Magdalena.
Assessment
After so many operational alterations and modifications made in the last ten centuries, we inherited a palimpsest of difficult reading that had lost its physical relationship with the citizen, its public function, until its permanent closure. This fact places the architecture project in an interesting field of discussion: the need to expand the concept of public space. For this it is necessary to review the conceptual limits between contemporary public space, hydraulic infrastructure, public source and cultural equipment.
Likewise, it has been necessary to rethink the concept of recovery itself and ask ourselves how to integrate this last stratum from the present time, the need to recover the essential value of the place, putting in value the found remains. The project interprets each rest offering the same validity to all the strata found, validity that is based on the ability of each piece to explain the events that have built it over the centuries. In this sense, the project establishes a unitary assessment of history as a unique process.
In this sense, the materiality of water has lent us its associated value, both symbolic and conceptual, protagonist of urban development. The stone, commissioned for centuries to contain the land and preserve the space that water needs to be offered, has lent us its construction system. Glass, finally, has given us its ability to receive both loans and offer the experience that means immersing yourself in the history of this place.
#Spain, #public_space , #glass , #archeology , #water , #hydraulic_infrastructure , #water_tank , #lighting
@revitalization
From the entrance, the image is reduced to a horizontal plane of glass and water, the limits of which are lost where the perception of the mud walls and stone retaining walls begins. Its height allows a flooded space to be perceived from the outside. Between the sheet of water and the perimeter walls, the glass floor becomes first a staircase and then a staircase, slowly leading us to the opposite end. There, once below the sheet of water (reference to the original level), we discover a space next to a cistern. A large air bubble used as an interpretive space, where the three main flows that distribute the water appear. Here at the end of this short and intense tour begins the history of the Raudal de la Magdalena.
Assessment
After so many operational alterations and modifications made in the last ten centuries, we inherited a palimpsest of difficult reading that had lost its physical relationship with the citizen, its public function, until its permanent closure. This fact places the architecture project in an interesting field of discussion: the need to expand the concept of public space. For this it is necessary to review the conceptual limits between contemporary public space, hydraulic infrastructure, public source and cultural equipment.
Likewise, it has been necessary to rethink the concept of recovery itself and ask ourselves how to integrate this last stratum from the present time, the need to recover the essential value of the place, putting in value the found remains. The project interprets each rest offering the same validity to all the strata found, validity that is based on the ability of each piece to explain the events that have built it over the centuries. In this sense, the project establishes a unitary assessment of history as a unique process.
In this sense, the materiality of water has lent us its associated value, both symbolic and conceptual, protagonist of urban development. The stone, commissioned for centuries to contain the land and preserve the space that water needs to be offered, has lent us its construction system. Glass, finally, has given us its ability to receive both loans and offer the experience that means immersing yourself in the history of this place.
#Spain, #public_space , #glass , #archeology , #water , #hydraulic_infrastructure , #water_tank , #lighting
@revitalization