Territorio Mudéjar, the network of 34 municipalities promoted by the Diputación de Zaragoza that works to conserve and promote Mudejar art in the province, has awarded 5 research stays and one runner-up for the study, development of projects and management of the natural and heritage resources of its member towns.
This is the second call for these stays, named after Gonzalo M. Borrás Gualis as a tribute to the distinguished professor and expert on the Mudejar. Each of them is endowed with 6,000 euros and will allow the development of responsible, sustainable and innovative research projects with a direct impact on the rural environment and that favour its visibility and knowledge.
This edition has been characterised by the high level of the proposals, which include multidisciplinary teams of researchers from different Spanish and Italian countries, with the advice of prestigious experts. The selected projects will allow the development of projects in areas such as the recovery of building materials such as Mudejar plaster, the conservation of traditional architecture, the design of visits that combine the agricultural calendar and Mudejar heritage, the creation of a podcast channel of Territorio Mudéjar, a guide to the historical carpentry of our villages and the study of new models of cultural management of Mudejar civil architecture.
The aim of these stays is to promote knowledge of the rural territory from its Mudejar identity through innovative approaches that have a positive impact on the villages and promote a network of work on the possibilities offered by the resources of the territory and collaborative and interdisciplinary work. In addition, specifically, the aim is to improve knowledge of the Mudejar as a World Heritage Site and the benefits it brings as an international brand recognised by Unesco.
The selected projects are framed within five lines of research: new perspectives on Mudejar art, Mudejar territory and cultural landscape, cultural heritage management, communication and dissemination of Mudejar heritage and Mudejar heritage and its social function as a key element of territorial development.
The projects one by one
1-“Mudejar plaster, an element of identity, knowledge and future opportunities”.
Traditional plaster is a key material in Mudejar architecture and is used in monumental and popular architecture, but it is largely unknown, as it is often misidentified and confused with lime-based materials. In the 2019 research stay, the architect Pedro Bel exhaustively documented the manufacturing process of traditional plaster in 16 municipalities and drew attention to the difficulties of rehabilitating plaster constructions due to the lack of compatible materials. With the 2020 research stay, he is looking for solutions to the conservation limitations of traditional plaster with ambitious objectives: to learn more about this material, to disseminate its role in traditional Aragonese architecture and to develop a plaster that can be manufactured today and that preserves the legacy it has received. In this way, it aims to reactivate the quarries, to obtain a material compatible with Mudejar plaster for restoration and rehabilitation and to reintroduce it in contemporary architecture.
This project has a strong team of researchers from the universities of Zaragoza, Granada, Malaga and the Polytechnic of Madrid and high-level advisors such as Ramón Rubio Domene, head of the tiled plasterwork restoration workshop of the Patronato de La Alhambra, and Antonio Almagro Gorbea, member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando.
2-“Vernacular architecture in Mudejar villages: tools and networks for adaptive re-use and compatible intervention”.
In addition to monuments of great historical and artistic value, the towns and villages of Mudejar Territory have a more humble architecture, but of great social and ethnological value, integrated into the environment and reflecting the cultural identity of the area. The proper conservation and enhancement of this traditional architecture can be the starting point for economic regeneration based on the use of heritage sites by private individuals, which can increase the attractiveness and competitiveness of historic towns. To this end, it is necessary to balance the conservation of architectural heritage and socio-economic development.
Javier Gómez Patrocinio, PhD in architecture from the University of Valencia, studied the construction techniques and intervention dynamics prevailing in Territorio Mudéjar during his 2019 stay. Now, he is continuing his research and plans to design and implement tools to raise awareness among local communities about the value of vernacular architecture and the importance of its preservation in order to help developers improve the compatibility of interventions on traditional buildings.
3-“Mudejar heritage and agricultural calendar: The poetics of the landscape. Design and programming of pilot experiences for visits during the seasons of the year”.
Agricultural heritage, considered as a cultural asset and understood in a similar way to intangible heritage, is a reference point for identity and a unique and irreplaceable part of the landscape in which it is framed. With this research stay, the art historians Juan Ignacio Santos Rodríguez and Elvira del Pilar Domínguez Castro will diagnose the degree of representativeness and typology of this heritage, as well as its characterisation and capacity to generate new heritage resources linked to both the agricultural calendar and the Mudejar heritage. The aim is to design a plan of activities that link the agricultural heritage with Mudejar architecture, which is the result of this landscape, and which are linked to the agricultural calendar.
It also includes pilot itinerary tests in order to show the undeniable and unique symbiosis between the land, agricultural production and the materials of the environment with Mudejar architecture and decoration, as well as to strengthen the emotional link of the population with the land, its agricultural economic activity and its products.
4-“Loqui Walls. The walls speak. Podcast to give voice to the territory”.
This communication project consists of the creation of a podcast channel for Territorio Mudéjar to encourage and complement visits to the monuments in our towns. The traveller will be able to listen to these podcasts through mobile technologies at any time of the day or week, which allows us to respond to the needs of sustainable and small-scale tourism.
The content of the podcasts will not replace the experience of visiting the main monument, which should always be explained in situ by a specialist, but will complement it with proposals for tours of the territory that will enhance visits between localities, with additional information about the locality that will complement existing visits, and with suggestions for activities that can be carried out in the area. The project will also help to consolidate the idea of Mudejar culture beyond the monumental. The proposal will be developed by a team formed by Gianluca Vita (Politecnico di Milano), Irene Ruiz (Politecnico di Torino and University of Zaragoza) and the expert in new technologies Marco Marcellini.
5-“Mudejar wood. Guide to historic carpentry in the towns of Territorio Mudéjar”.
This research project is part of the area of new perspectives on Mudéjar art and aims to promote knowledge and appreciation of the manifestations of Mudéjar art made in wood to the fullest extent: ceilings (alfarjes and file frames), doors, windows, eaves, choirs, organ bases, choir stalls, choir stalls, carillons… It will consist of creating a specialised online publication containing an inventory of the works with descriptions, status and images. It will also include texts by specialists on the techniques and fundamentals of Mudéjar carpentry, a complete bibliography on the subject and special chapters on the most important works of historical carpentry in Territorio Mudéjar.
Myriam Monterde, a professional in cultural management and museology, and José Manuel Herraiz, an audiovisual producer and scriptwriter specialising in the historical and cultural genre, are in charge of developing this research.
6-Accesit: “New models of cultural management and financing for restoration projects of historic-monumental Mudejar civil buildings in the province of Zaragoza”.
Territorio Mudéjar has awarded a second prize to a research project on Mudéjar civil architecture. The art historians Ricardo Monreal Lafuente and Marta López Veamonte are responsible for this initiative with which they will continue a process of research and data collection begun in 2019. The aim of this work was to obtain current and technologically advanced material on the civil architecture of the Mudejar Territory that preserves Mudejar elements and to document the management model of these buildings. The current 2020 phase will consist of specific work on one of the most important civil spaces in our territory, the Palacio de los Luna de Daroca. Its development will entail defining a working model for this type of Mudejar architecture as well as the analysis of new models for the management of historical-artistic heritage that will allow these buildings to be put to use, thus contributing to their sustainability, their social function and their incorporation into the life of the towns. It will also address how to finance restoration projects for these buildings.
