A great crack: this is the project that has won the competition to redefine the Valley of the Fallen

The project The base and the cross has won the international competition to redefine the Valley of the FallenIn total, 34 proposals were submitted, and the budget amounts to 30.5 million euros. As the Spanish government explained on Tuesday, the project consists of a "great fissure" that will transform the Cuelgamuros Valley into a place of dialogue and plurality. One of the project's proposals is the demolition of the staircase that currently provides access to the basilica, which will be replaced by a new platform and a courtyard that runs through it. The Secretary General for Urban Agenda, Iñaqui Carnicero, said that the winning proposal is "bold." "It is a project that dares to challenge the existing structure. It proposes a new perspective on the monument, redefines its boundaries, and gives greater prominence to nature and architecture. It breaks the axiality that has always characterized it, creating a large shadow, a great fissure that facilitates encounters and fosters greater plurality, inviting dialogue and opening up new perspectives," he stated. Carnicero explained that, through a "large slab," the public will access a circle "open to the sky" that will allow for "reorganizing the flow of traffic." From this point, visitors will be able to enter the basilica, where "minimal interventions" will be carried out. The immense cross, measuring 150 meters of vertical granite and visible from more than 20 kilometers away, will not be touched. In fact, the Spanish government has never considered the possibility of demolishing such a symbol of the monument's Francoist origins. The works to transform the complex will begin no earlier than 2027 and are expected to take four years. The government will allocate 26 million euros, plus an additional 4 million euros in fees for the winning design.

The project, as explained in the press release, goes beyond an architectural, landscape, and artistic reinterpretation: "It is a work with the responsibility of redefining this space as a place of memory, recognition, commemoration, and tribute, and of social and cultural integration." For now, the authors of the project are unknown, as the competition was anonymous, but they will be made public in the coming hours.

The jury was chaired by Iñaqui Carnicero and comprised Fernando Martínez, representing the Ministry of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory; Jordi Martí, representing the Ministry of Culture; Luis Pérez, representing the Board of Directors of National Heritage; María Teresa Verdú, representing the Ministry of Housing and Urban Agenda; and Elena Calama as secretary. They also had the technical advice of Francisco Ferrándiz, and the presence of the Catholic Church, represented by Daniel Alberto Escobar. In fact, before launching the international competition, there were negotiations with the Church to agree on certain points. Among them, not to touch either the basilica or the abbey.

"It's an enormously complex task," said British architect and Pritzker Prize winner David Chipperfield, who was present at the unveiling of the winning project. One only needs to read the words of the architects of a monument that fulfilled Franco's egocentric dream. The entire landscape of Cuelgamuros is designed to exalt the Francoist vision of the Civil War and the dictatorship, while concealing the material traces of the violence upon which the complex was built: the penal colonies where prisoners and their families eked out a living for years in miserable conditions. Not to mention the remains of more of 33,800 peopleMany of these individuals were buried without their families' consent. One of the few details released about the "minimal" intervention at the basilica, where masses will continue to be held, is that there will be information panels about the people buried in the crypts. The project includes the construction of an interpretation center that will explain how and why Cuelgamuros was built.