Castle spared from ruin, but not criticism
Spanish structure’s restoration offends aesthetics of locals
When the residents of Villamartín heard the landmark castle near their small town in southern Spain was up for restoration, they probably envisaged a thoughtful restoration of the medieval stronghold to something approximating its former glory.
Instead, what they have been left with is something that many think more closely resembles a parking garage.
The repair of Matrera Castle, perched on a ridge in the Andalusia region, has infuriated locals and provoked the ire of conservationists. Images of the castle before and after the restoration have fueled bemusement and ridicule on social media.
“It’s a barbarity,” one town resident was quoted as saying by the Spanish news channel La Sexta.
“I don’t like what they’ve done at all,” another said.
“It looks like they’ve used builders instead of restorers,” a third said, using a mild expletive to assess the quality of the work.
Hispania Nostra, a preservationist group that advocates the protection of heritage sites, was similarly unimpressed.
The work is “truly lamentable” and “has very badly surprised locals and foreigners,” the group’s vice president, Carlos Morenés, said on its website, calling the project an example of the “massacre” of Spanish heritage.
Preservation comes first
The architect behind the restoration, Carlos Quevedo Rojas, acknowledged his results were not to everyone’s taste.
“I understand the criticism of local people used to seeing the tower look a certain way,” he said, “but the principle objective was to prevent the collapse of the structure.”
Quevedo Rojas said that modern standards for restoring historic buildings discouraged efforts to make them look like they might have when erected.
“You have to distinguish and maintain the historical value and architectural integrity,” he said. “You can’t make the structure have the same appearance as the original. You can’t falsify the appearance. It has to be clear which parts are new and which are old.”
According to Quevedo Rojas, plans to restore the castle, which is privately owned, were drawn up in 2011, but had to be altered when the north wall collapsed in 2013 because of floods in the area.
“In this case, the first objective is to consolidate the structure so it doesn’t suffer further collapses,” he said.
The project, he said, cost hundreds of thousands of euros — he would not be precise — and did not involve public funds.
Attempts to repair objects of historical significance have gone awry before in Spain. In 2012, a case of suspected vandalism in a church in the northeastern village of Borja turned out to be among the worst art restoration projects of all time: An 83-yearold widow and amateur painter admitted having tried to restore a nearly century-old fresco of Jesus crowned with thorns.
That story had a somewhat miraculous ending — the restoration was so appalling the church became an attraction.
Critics miss point
The renovated Matrera Castle seems unlikely to enjoy the same fate, but the makeover has its defenders. José María Gutiérrez López, the director of Villamartín’s small history museum, said critics were simply ill-informed.
“I think the criticism comes from people without any knowledge of the criteria of modern restoration,” he said. “They wanted it to be restored to the same condition as it was before, but that’s not what happens.”
Gutiérrez López, who has written a book about the castle and the history of the surrounding area but was not involved in the repairs, expressed surprise at the negative attention it has received.
“It looks fine to me,” he said. “I don’t think it’s out of place at all.”