The initiatives to recover public spaces and beautify the Historic Center of La Vega, assumed and materialized with political determination and instructive objectives by Mayor Kelvin Cruz, are works that not only constitute reasons of pride for vegans, but also impose their appreciation and its registration as axiomatic and radiant evidence of a renewing vision of municipal management in our country…
In the Dominican Republic, the accelerated process of socioeconomic development and the excessive use of private automobiles intensify the fragmentation of urban space, causing automatic tension between the spaces of transit and permanence of citizens and users of the city. From my weightless and “desecrated” tracking, the primary reason for this tension is related to the quality of political management and, for that reason, to the painful absence of a systemic, integrative and empowering vision of public space.
Fortunately, in some cities and especially in La Vega, we notice the material evidence of a vision that emerges reaffirming, emphasizing and betting intelligently on the functions of social integration, leisure, recreation, education and physical and mental health that public spaces imply. . The main shareholder of this emerging vision, saturated with interesting expectations for the future, is Eng. Kelvin Cruz Cáceres, ratified in three consecutive elections as mayor of La Vega (2016-2020-2024) and current president of the Dominican Federation of Municipalities (FEDOMU).
The optimization of environmental conditions and the transformation of public spaces into attractive, friendly and recreational spaces for all their users become notable aspects of the proactive vegan mayor’s uplifting and distinctive vision of public space. Hence, we could simply continue to perceive in these executions the political and humanistic desires of community integration and citizen security.
This intimate perception would be confirmed by a series of respectable executions that include the recovery of public spaces; the construction of new recreational parks and the renovation of some representative squares of the city of La Vega such as Las Carolinas Park; Las Palmas Park (Blas Pezzoti); the new roundabout access to the city from the Duarte and Santo Domingo Highway; José Martí Park; the Hugo Estrella Health Park; La Primavera Park; Las Flores Park (Elías Brache) and the recently inaugurated Plaza de los Presidentes Veganos.
Likewise, the redesign and reconstruction of Pedro A. Rivera Avenue and the recovery of the walls along this same road, through a series of immense mural paintings of vital polychrome and identity motifs of the region, carried out by the renowned architect and visual artist Raúl Morilla, also author of the formidable public sculpture Centinela that spectacularly finishes the Plaza de los Presidentes, as well as the important Dignification program of the Historic Center of La Vega that includes the restoration and renovation of 24 building facades heritage of the city and the country.
Social insensitivity and disengagement with the community of any municipal management will inevitably manifest in the same state of deterioration suffered by the material figures of history and culture. However, the criteria and importance with which such figures are considered and appreciated will also reflect the authenticity of the commitment and the determination to preserve them. In this sense, the initiatives carried out by Mr. Kelvin Cruz and his multidisciplinary team from the Municipal Council of La Vega are instructive.
Three notable components of the dignifying program of the historic center of the city of La Vega are the regulation of outdoor advertising, the lighting of recovered public spaces and the renovation of 24 facades of emblematic commercial buildings of Neoclassical, Art Nouveau and Modernist styles. considered architecturally, historically and culturally significant, whose construction is recorded in the first three decades of the 20th century, such as the majestic Teruel Building and the splendid Palace of Don Zoilo García, headquarters of the Vegan Carnival Museum.
In addition to Mayor Kelvin Cruz, the direction, execution and supervision of the Dignification Program of the Historic Center of La Vega, have been assumed with optimal results by the architects Yaira Rincón, Raúl Morilla, Paola de Moya and Joel Martínez, always articulated with the Office of Monumental Heritage and attentive to current regulations, achieving an appreciable recovery of the original architectural and stylistic aspects of the renovated buildings.
2024-03-02 04:31:40
#Vega #art #history #splendor #recovered
