Archaeology Versus Urban Development in Cartagena

DOI 10.7603/s40707-014-0011-5 GSTF Journal of Engineering Technology (JET) Vol.3 No.2, July 2015 Archaeology versus Urban Development in Cartagena Francisco Segado Vázquez and José Manuel Maciá Albendín. Received 28 Apr 2015 Accepted 21 May 2015 Abstract— Archaeology has taught us what our origins are, and assessments that focus on the order in which they appear but frequently it works in an independent way, avoiding any kind rather than on the elements that should be highlighted as the of collaboration with other disciplines such as Urban way to establish the real relationship between old and new Development. Most often, archaeologists, managed by different urban plans. The chronological order of the different actions government bodies, tend to work independently of urban seems to be more important than the global vision, and, hence, planners. This system has led to archeologists getting the most often, the figure of the urban architect is the last one to be recognition for their discoveries while at the same time depriving involved in the process and must assume the previous actions society of the knowledge of the cities origin. As a consequence, of other professionals who have looked after their own interests urban development cannot fulfill its role. The fact that from the perspective of their own discipline. In most occasions archeological and urban development projects are carried out it may be too late to recover the old plans under the new cities. separately is the main reason for the absence of any relationship between current town planning in the cities and old and buried Usually, when any kind of archaeological discovery is urban planning. As a result, society is the loser in a battle in made, archaeologists are called in order to carry out the which there are no winners. necessary works for an appraisal of the findings. However, urban architects are called when they have to accommodate, In Cartagena (Spain), Pedro A. San Martín (1921-2013), an within a global vision, the archeological discovery with the architect, a member of the Department of Fine Arts of the current urban plans and demonstrate how this discovery can Ministry of Culture, Local commissioner of Archaeological affect the development of the city. A lot of dispersed remains Excavations and Director of the Municipal Archaeological Museum of Cartagena, developed a multi-layered approach tend to take up independent areas of the cities without any kind (technical and urban) in the pursuit of one central objective: the of connection. revaluation of the city in its entirety. He tried to be an architect Due to this, in most cases there is a lack of coordination among archaeologists, learning the methods and ways in which among the different government bodies to promote the archaeologists worked, and also an archaeologist among interdisciplinary team work that would allow laying the architects, trying to explain to them how they had to coordinate foundations for the research aimed at the coexistence of two their discoveries in order to achieve a viable relationship between cities instead of their overlapping. the old and the new city in Cartagena. His efforts are a great example of how both disciplines should be combined. We need to understand what is failing in order to know how to correct it. The present article tries to analyze old methods Keywords— Archaeology, Urban Development, Tarragona, and its consequences, in order to define a modus operandi in Mérida, Cartagena dealing with archaeological remains. Therefore, the key findings of this research must be: I. INTRODUCTION Define cities whose characteristics are similar to those Many articles have been written about the coexistence of of the Roman Age. superimposed historical cities on the same urban fabric over the last decades. Most of them seem to have focused on different Define patterns of urban projects and plans in cities of social, economic and archeological points of view, and have similar characteristics. omitted, on many occasions, the most important discipline which should concern all of them: urban development. In fact, Set out the legal and urban plans of action. bearing in mind the definition of Urban Development – Research the involvement of architects in “knowledge relating to the planning, development, reform and archaeological excavations in the studied cities. extension of buildings and spaces within urban areas” –, these spaces within urban areas do not refer to any particular time. Draw conclusions regarding the results and Therefore, Urban Development can and should link the consequences of the involvement of architects in the different ages in which cities have lived, and that entails archaeological works in the studied cities. recovering the true essence of the composition and origin of the cities. This becomes even more obvious when government bodies tend to give more importance to the evaluations, considerations DOI: 10.5176/2251-3701_3.2.128 ©The Author(s) 2015. This article is published with open access by the GSTF 64 GSTF Journal of Engineering Technology (JET) Vol.3 No.2, July 2015 II. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND follow in the process but forgets the special characteristics of each city. Any proposal aimed at highlighting only specific elements – instead of the city as a whole – can only be For a long time, Spain did not develop any plan to preserve detrimental, since it would remove all the elements that its cultural heritage. Archaeological findings were preserved by interrelate and interlink; the elements that give sense to the local government bodies that would build a "museum" around city. or over the place where the discovery had been made. Urban development was the way to regenerate and shape the city but The fact that it has to be the European Commission who not its history and culture, and it did not have any influence has to intervene in this situation to try to regulate the action over archaeology. It did not seem necessary to establish the turns out to be enlightening enough, after two decades of the relationship of these disciplines in the city. first approaches. Although, far from using a regulatory framework, it carries out this task through studies and In 1985, the Ministry of Culture and the General proposals of multidisciplinary teams leaving the Directorate of Fine Arts published "Archaeology of modern implementation in the hands of the different government cities superimposed on old ones, Zaragoza 1983"[1], which is bodies. one of the first studies about the conflicts that were starting to take form, regarding the way of recovering the origins. The fact It seems to be impossible to understand the layout of a that it coincided with the publication of the Law 16/1985, of Roman city taking into account only the different findings of June 25, on the Historical Spanish Heritage is not a mere daily items of the time or independent buildings. All these coincidence and reveals a shift in the way of addressing and elements must be considered from the outset as an inseparable highlighting recovery projects. The aforementioned publication part of the whole to which it gives sense. includes the article "Cartagena: Conservation of archaeological urban sites in the old town", written by Pedro III. CURRENT SITUATION A. San Martín, which already deals with the issues affecting the city on which we will focus later, an example of which is the works carried out with the Roman remains. In Spain we find many significant examples of action aimed at highlighting the Archaeological Heritage, although its In the course of the European Seminar on the Management final purpose moves away from the objective of linking and of Historical City Centers, that took place in the city of integrating two cities into one. Granada (Spain) [2] in 2000, the sensitivity about the question of the relationship between archaeology and urban Outstanding cases on which proposals have been made and development is revealed in different presentations. One of them solutions implemented are the Castle of San Jorge and the stands out: "The city inside the city: the integration of heritage Encarnación in Seville [6], where it was proposed that management in modern urban development" [3] written by Siri archaeological discoveries were to be exhibited in the place of Myrvoll, Secretary General of the Organization of World its finding, as a new kind of proposal in the appraisal of the heritage Cities (OCPM) and Director of the Heritage heritage; the Square of the Orphans and the Square of Martos Management of Bergen (Norway). Focused on the issues of the Door in Jaén [7], where importance was given to the different city of Bergen, it raises similar issues to the ones raised in archaeological aspects and the creation of new artistic Spain and more countries all around the world. One of these resources in the squares of the city center; the Foro and the local scenes corresponds to the presentation "The patrimonial Theatre museums, and the museums of the Thermal baths and management in a city superposed to an archaeological site: the the Fluvial Port in Zaragoza [8] (rules were established leading model of Merida" [4] written by Pedro Mateos, General to the selection of the themes of the four museums that form Manager of the Consortium of the Monumental City of Merida the Caesar Augusta Route, with the on-site evaluation of (Spain). remains and the reviving of the buildings); the surroundings of the Roman Theatre in Cádiz [9], which is the paradigm of the Further on, in 2004, during the period of maximum current thesis between the rescue of the documentary value of exploitation of the urban development and real-estate resources the archaeological findings, opposed to the defense of the in our country, in the III International Congress about current urban planning of the present city.

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