After the partial collapse that this medieval tower suffered, being a historical landmark for its strategic position in the latest “Nazari” border through the Valley of Guadalete, where it´s cut with Bética range, we project the consolidation of this landscape icon that lost part of its imposing volume, leaving at risk the stability of the rest popup, removing with it not only part from the architectural element, but also the landscape reference of a landmark very linked with the iconography and culture of the region. Being cultural modals and emblems of our own cities and territories, the crisis has been that they succumb in the abandon for their own economic disinterest that carries their maintenance.

For the buttresses that guarantee its stability and for the reinforcements/protections of the internal degraded cores that had lost their exterior stonework, the same limestone was re-used which had collapsed. The top was executed in order to consolidate the slender wall that remained after the collapse and that was traversing a serious risk of overturn. In its exterior face, the flesh was removed and in that the original white covering was retained in its interior face as well as an interesting fresco painting of a boat in tonality ochre. All the edges have been rethought from the details of geometric existing elements to mark its original volume.

This intervention sought to achieve three basic objectives: to structurally consolidate the elements that were at risk; to differentiate the additions from the original structure (avoiding the mimetic reconstructions that our law prohibits) and to recover the volume, texture and tonality that the tower originally had (some little surfaces still remain). The essence of the project is not intended to be, therefore, an image of the future, but rather a reflection of its own past, its own origin.

In parallel with the practice in intervention of movable heritage, its historical value is enhanced, facing its original volume using a continuous coating (lime mortar) similar to that which originally covered it, which clogs the gap and allows reading of the architecturally recessed unit. Likewise the upper casing defines its construction phases enhancing the original battlements shots that were hidden behind their stratigraphic superposition.

With brandian reference, this project aims to look at the potential restoration of unity without undertaking a historic monument false or cancel every trace of the passage in time. It tries to approach the work in recognition of the “monumentum” (memory) in its physical consistency and its dual polarity, aesthetic and historical, in order to transmit to the future.​

Data Sheet

Architect:                 Carlos Quevedo Rojas

Situation:                Villamartín (Cádiz), Spain.

Dates:                     2011-15

Surface/Volume:    136,00 m² / 2.176,00 m³

Collaborators:         Cristina Pérez Prado
                                Joaquín Martín Rizo

Promotor:               Ubri-Prado S.L.

Construction:         Arcobeltia Construcciones S.L.

Technical:               José Antonio Cabeza Pérez

Photographies:       Mariano Copete Franco
                                Francisco Chacón Martínez

About Carquero Arquitectura

Carlos Quevedo Rojas. Cádiz (Spain). Architect for E.T.S.A. University of Seville (Spain). “Master´s Degree in Architecture and Historical Heritage. University of Seville (Spain). Specialization in Monument´s Restoration. University “La Sapienza” Rome (Italy). Master´s Degree “Art History: Investigation and Guardianship of the Heritage”. Univestity of Granada (Spain). International PhD Candidate in Architecture: University of Seville and Venice.

His works has been awarded with the International Architecture Award “Architizer A+” (New York; Winner), International Landscape Award “Rosa Barba” and Bienal (Barcelona; Selected)

International American Architecture Prize, (USA; Gold Winner), Premio Internazionale di Architettura e Natura “Simonetta Bastelli” (Peruggia; Selected), Prize “Torres Clavé” (Cádiz; Winner), “Arquia Próxima” Award for young architects (Madrid; Catalogued), Urban Planning National Award “Ricardo Santos Díez” (Madrid; Winner).