When the intervention on defensive walls connects with the cultural landscape. The Aljafería in Zaragoza, Spain

Abstract

This paper focuses on the analysis of the interventions carried out in the Palacio de la Aljafería (Aljafería Palace) in Zaragoza, Spain, as a reference in the practice of monumental restoration during the 20th century. Through a historical-critical methodology, based on the analysis of primary documentary sources (work projects and institutional reports) and secondary sources (specific bibliography of the historians and architects involved in the interventions), the main phases of intervention carried out on the monument between 1933 and 1985 are identified. From the study of the data collected, the conceptual framework is revealed through the technical and functional criteria that emerged from the reconstruction projects. This overview reveals a process of professionalization of the task of the architect-restorer in the period analyzed, as well as the existence of a certain tension between the necessary heritage conservation and functional adaptation as a central mechanism in the conservation of monumental architecture. The contextualization of the interventions analyzed (the reconstruction of the defensive elements), with those carried out in the gardens, pools, parterre and moat, makes the palace visible as a link with the surrounding environment, promoting monumental and urban conservation as a key symbiosis to guarantee the recovery of the city’s cultural landscape.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.20365/disegnarecon.35.2025.10