“Urban Regeneration Studies Expansion of Protected Buildings in Atochas and Os Mallos Neighborhoods”

The Urban Rexeneración area studied the relevance of expanding the list of buildings protected by the general plan in various neighborhoods of the city. Atochas, A Falperra, Eirís, Monelos, Os Mallos, Sagrada Familia, Os Castros and Mariñeiros are the areas in which they plan to catalog a hundred of buildings or sets of buildings that, in many cases, are survivors of successive development environments in areas popular.

The municipal government will take to plenary session next week a change in the general plan to add about twenty buildings that, for those responsible for Urban Planning and according to the recommendations of the Xunta, deserve protection. This is the case of the market or the Pablo Picasso school. But the modification of the urban document will not stop there. The City Council will entrust an external company with the drafting of a deeper expansion of the list of architectural, ethnographic and archaeological heritage.

For this, Urban Regeneration technicians have prepared a draft in which they list “real estate and urban elements that can be incorporated into the catalog of protected assets”, with a section dedicated to “urban complexes”. “It is not a firm proposal”, but “recommendations” for study. There are two “casuistries”: that of buildings that deserve to be cataloged, not so much for their individual qualities, but for their role as part of the urban “fabric” to which they belong; and that of the first residential complexes of cheap houses from the city: the houses of Claudio San Martín (Os Castros) and Mariñeiros.

►“Atocha Labyrinth”. “It may have been the historic neighborhood most disfigured by the recent stage of real estate speculation,” the technicians point out, noting that its urban planning has never been studied “as one of the first neighborhoods of the city’s industrial proletariat.” “If in feudal society, Pescadería represents the urban fabric of the mainly seafaring working class, the Santa Lucía neighborhood, the Cordelería strip or A Gaiteira constitute their analogues of the first industrial revolution,” they reason. The characteristic residential property of these neighborhoods is “online housing”, from a couple to half a dozen properties. “At this moment the examples that remain are testimonial and isolated,” adds the draft. The preliminary Urban Planning list includes buildings in Atocha Alta (9), Marconi (3), Travesía do Traballo (3-7), Independencia street (5, 7, 11, 19, 21, 25, 29, 32 and 34), Salgado Somoza street (6, 8, 10, 12, 28, 32 and 34).

The document includes the group from 2 to 12 of the Atocha Crossing in the list, but as it belongs to a Planning Area, they recognize that “it will be difficult in the short term to reverse its sentence of disappearance.” Outside of these typologies, they indicate that it is necessary to study the sidewalk of the odd numbers of Marconi (5 and 7), the 2 of Montroig and the numbers from 23 to 33 in Veramar. In San Lorenzo street, the projects of Peregrín Estellés in the Second Republic stand out, with a “priority” building on the corner that opens the street (number 5 Andrés Antelo). The document, which leaves open to the editors the presentation of more proposals, closes this neighborhood with 42-44 Rey Pedreira in Adelaida Muros.

►The Falperra (Gurugu). Although they assert that the building process is analogous to Ace Atochas, it is different the chronology (the builds are much later, most of the twenties) and the size (both the houses and the set of which they form part are older); . . . . Legislation and planning were in a more mature phase, which facilitated the coherence of such sets and a “more regular” fabric. It pays special attention to being the “foundational” area of ​​the “X” neighborhood of Sinforiano López and Juan Castro Mosquera streets. The prominent properties are in Sinforiano Lopez (50 and 52), Juan Castro Mosquera (27, 36 and 44) ​​and Villa de Laxe (8), Falperra (51-53).

►Residential complex of Eirís. They are numbers 30-38 of Montserrat avenue and 25-31 of Lázaro Cárdenas (Gallego Jorreto, 1988). It is the only modern set on the list. A coherent group of terraced buildings, in a line, a construction model that was “majority in the city” but “practically eliminated in the last three decades”. They allege that the “only reason” for including it is the “disfigurement” produced in the fabric by alterations in elements such as carpentry and coatings.

►monelos To the two buildings determined by the Xunta on Avenida de Monelos (117 and 119), the technicians add others on Callejón del Lagarto (4, 6, 8 and 12).

►Extension of Os Mallos. Urban Planning applauds the fact that the 2013 catalog recognizes the value of the “small Ensanche de Os Mallos”, something unprecedented in previous plans (eight blocks between Falperra, Noia, Cronista Pacheco and Antonio Viñes streets). As a novelty, now the editors look at a complex around the Plaza de la Paz (1930s), whose urban planning was not planned but which became a valuable bridge between two axes of growth of the time: the Segundo Ensanche and the Ensache of Os Mallos. The buildings recommended for their protection are numbers 1, 13, 15, 17 and 19 Eusebio da Guarda, 28 Oidor Gregorio Tovar, 3 and 8 Noia Street and 11 Santander Street. Without constituting a characteristic type of the neighborhood, they include San Luis (6, 8, 10 and 25) and San Vicente (9).

►Origin of Holy Family and Agra. The epicenter is the crossroads between Avenida de Finisterre and Calle San Sebastián. It is the origin of the neighborhood and also one of the growth centers of Agra. The rationalist buildings of the 40s survive in San Isidoro, San Leandro, Cardenal Cisneros, Maravillas… “These blocks currently represent the largest concentration of small-sized rationalist architecture in the city.” The “first examples detected” are in Calle Maravillas (10 and 22), González del Villar (7, 9 and 10), San Isidoro (6) and San Leandro (14 and 16). The editors mention the “analogous” case of Agra: Pascual Veiga street (33, 46 and 53-55), Observatorio (25 and 27), Villa de Negreira (17-25) and José Baldomir (20 and 22).