The nobility thought themselves victorious. During the summer, he celebrated it with long walks through the Buen Retiro Gardens that burst into a thousand colors. The populace then had the opportunity even to smell the high society of Madrid. "That's where the Marquis of San Felices goes by car, those are the queen's ladies." Moments that seemed to shorten class distances and that only a forceful revolution managed to interrupt. La Gloriosa had triumphed, Elizabeth II went into exile and with her went the old prerogatives of the royal clique. In charge of administering the Bourbon assets, the provisional government gave the park to the people of the capital in 1868. The Madrid City Council is therefore the owner of the Retiro and responsible for its deficiencies. Those that have not even managed to solve the declaration as World Heritage,granted on July 25 of last year for its undeniable historical value as the first interclass garden.
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A walk through the evils of Retiro
A tour of the Retiro last Wednesday, six months after the UNESCO ruling, invites us to think that this site calls for improvements.
The Ochavado Pond is empty, the monument to the Álvarez Quintero brothers has been cracking and both the Fisherman's House and the Artificial Mountain are still closed to the public.
It seems that Isabella the Catholic raised her fist at the Fountain of Cuba, not because the queen embraces Castroism, but because the cross she carried in her right hand disappeared.
There is only one information point in 120 hectares, only two toilets are accessible to the public with functional diversity and the recycling bins are conspicuous by their absence, in breach of municipal regulations.
The Park Agents are not noticed either.
In two and a half hours of travel, this newspaper only ran into a car from Acciona's private security.
Detail of the monument to Cuba, with a figure of Isabel La Católica, whose cross she held in her right hand has fallen off. DAVID EXPOSITO
Hence, a teenager, encouraged by his family, climbed with impunity one of those centenary trees that have earned the park global recognition. “Hold on to that branch, you're doing well, you're doing well!” they chanted. Bicycles, scooters, tricycles, Tuc-tuc, skateboards and all kinds of junk crisscross paths without mobility signs. Who has priority? Can you drive on secondary roads on wheels? At what speed? No one seems to know, nor is it perceived where or whom to ask.
A certain chaos that José Manuel Calvo, councilor of the Mixed Group in Cibeles, attributes to the current management model. "There are too many competent bodies in the area and it is difficult to coordinate them," he maintains. Three municipal areas are involved in the Retreat —Environment, Culture, Urban Development— and the District Board. Also the Ministry of Health of the Community, Metro, the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Culture.
That is why the Mixed Group will defend in the plenary session this Tuesday the creation of a single command for the area declared a World Heritage Site. It would be made up of every body and administration that operates or has facilities there, including the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), a UNESCO advisory body that raised serious doubts about the Madrid candidacy due to the pollution and excessive influx in the Park. The proposal bears the seal of the Association of Friends of the Buen Retiro Gardens. His spokesman Javier de la Puente, a retired forestry engineer, misses measures "that nobody knows very well who is responsible for them." Such as the creation of a security point and a web portal that informs about the closures of the park due to storm risk.
A young man climbs a tree in the Retiro park, despite being prohibited. David Expósito
"Turn around, Maria Dolores."
This has
dried up.
We better go the other way.
A tourist warns his wife, who follows him several meters behind, over the Estanque Ochavado, a dehydrated vestige of that Retreat enjoyed by Philip IV.
It was emptied nearly two decades ago to stop persistent leaks and has never been filled since.
It owes its name to a polibulated design, inside which seven masks survive, almost erased by the water that pooled here.
In the center shines a rockery, home to several cats that jump in terror when the sun, taking advantage of an oversight of the clouds, shows its face through the trees.
De la Puente believes that the UNESCO declaration should spur the rehabilitation and subsequent filling of this pond.
“Let the ducks swim, as it used to be in the past.
This is one of the few vestiges of the original Retiro”, he declares about the parterre, where a Baroque garden was also built until the 19th century.
Posters placed on the fence of one of the beach bars in front of the main pond of the Retiro Park.
David Exposito
Loud posters mark the Paseo de Venezuela. Many bars place them as a claim despite the fact that the concession specifications explicitly prohibit them. Churros with chocolate or sangria, paella and squid sandwich, mixed salad, fried eggs and tapa with ham. Everything is written on some signs that seem to have an effect, judging by the animation of the terraces. The artificial mountain stands a few meters away, a whim of King Ferdinand VII, now closed. Its hollow interior is crossed by numerous corridors that lead to a vaulted chamber. An exhibition hall was opened there in 1986, which leaked over the years and has been closed to this day. The Government team of Manuela Carmena put out to tender in 2018 the repair of the mountain for 410,000 euros, but no firm was presented to the call,a sign that they considered the endowment too low.
Five emaciated palmetto victims of the
Paysandisia are dying on the fenced mountain,
a voracious butterfly from Latin America.
The weeds cover every glimpse of the path, crossed in times by waterfalls, whose waters rushed into also artificial lagoons.
Taking the tour of Bolivia, you visit the Álvarez Quintero brothers.
Also the author of the monolith to Cervantes located in the Plaza de España, Lorenzo Collaut Varela drew this sculptural ensemble that the Republican City Council inaugurated in 1934 as a tribute to the work of playwrights Joaquín and Serafín.
The scene shows a lady who, leaning out of the balcony, notices the presence on horseback of a gentleman in a country suit.
It seems that he is about to compliment his beloved, but if the couple could look up, they would see that a cracked arch threatens to collapse on their heads.
Pond of the Campillas, empty of water, in the Retiro Park.David Expósito
It is a fissure at least four centimeters thick that mercilessly crosses the stone key. The technicians of the Historical Heritage Service, in their supervisory work, are aware of these pathologies, which the Department of Culture intends to remedy in the first half of the year, according to a spokesperson.
Similar degradation experiences the Romanesque hermitage of San Isidoro de Ávila, brought to the Retiro in 1896 after the confiscation.
According to De la Puente, the contamination is disintegrating its limestone walls, which show special wear on the archivolts.
In 2021, this was the third point in the capital with the highest concentration of nitrogen dioxide, as reported by the Escuelas Aguirre measurement station, located at the intersection of O'Donnell and Alcalá streets.
Citizens of all ages and conditions coexist in the Retiro as in the eighteenth century.
Although today, in addition, they dispute it with traffic and pollution.
Privilege that carries obligations
The World Heritage list carries with it a series of obligations. Such an ambitious status does not mean the end of a process supervised by UNESCO, but the beginning. In this way, the commitment to take care of a space considered unique is acquired. Violating this principle can lead to the departure of a club that has 1,200 sites around the world. It had only happened with two cases: the Elbe Valley in Dresden (Germany) and the Arabian Oryx sanctuary, Oman. Until such an honor was withdrawn from Liverpool during the same July assembly that gave it to Madrid. There were 13 votes in favor of expulsion, five against and two invalid. The Spanish capital could find itself in a similar situation if it does not comply with the recommendations of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) before December 1, 2022.
The report of this body considers that pollution is one of the problems to be solved, as well as the overcrowding of the Retiro and the traffic on the Paseo del Prado, where eight lanes currently run. Liverpool's recent file exemplifies the times in this kind of process: the city was recognized as a World Heritage Site in 2004, although in 2012 it was warned of its delicate situation. The concern for the industrial development of the commercial port then led UNESCO to transfer the place to the category of Heritage in Danger. It was not until nine years later that the notifications ended and the worst omens came true. “The project has continued, as have other urban development projects within the site and in its buffer zone.The Committee considers that these constructions are detrimental to the authenticity and integrity of the site, ”said the committee's statement.
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