The towers of the Temple change war for culture
The Palma City Council plans to open to the public the also known as Almudaina de Gumara in 2027, twenty years after having bought the building
PalmaThey are two towers, like the title of Tolkien's novel of the trilogy The Lord of the Rings: one Islamic; the other, from after the conquest. Two towers, with a central body added in the 19th century. They are known as the towers of the Temple or Almudaina de Gumara. Their origin is, of course, defensive. But Gumara will no longer fight: the Palma City Council plans to open them to the public to be a museum space. They will do so, the officials assure, once the rehabilitation works are completed, in 2027, twenty years after acquiring the building.
The towers form the facade of the Temple: a larger enclosure that includes the old chapel, one of the few examples of Romanesque art in Mallorca. The imposing aspect of its exterior contrasts with narrow interiors of relatively small dimensions: they are 613 square meters, luxurious dimensions for a dwelling, but perhaps modest for a cultural facility.
It has been five years of intervention, since, in February 2021, the Palma City Council approved its executive project: the forecast was for it to be completed in 2023. But works are known to start and not when they finish. And even more so in a space like this, where it is difficult to know what will be found and in what state of conservation it will be. The rehabilitation has been carried out based on a project by the Ibiza architect Elies Torres, with site supervision by the Boix studio and execution by the Rigel Over company, at a cost of two million euros.
According to Pilar Ribal, Director General of Heritage and City Interpretation, who told ARABalears, the City Council wants to tender the museum project for the Towers within the last quarter of this year. The projection is that it can become operational at the end of the current legislature, next year.
A controversial renovation
The public route through the Gumara towers will, in the future, be from the second-floor access: you must cross the opening between the two towers and access the garden area inside the enclosure. Therefore, it will be carried out from top to bottom, successively visiting the two floors intended for museum space and exiting through the base of the Islamic tower, the one on the right of the fortification.
A staircase, which has been adjusted as much as possible to the original structure, serves as a communication link to the entire complex; although, in accordance with current accessibility regulations, the corresponding elevator has been installed. On the mezzanine, bathrooms for visitors have been set up. The base of the Christian tower is the space designated for offices.
As Victòria Pons, architect and head of the Strategic Projects Service of the Palma City Council, explains, the objective has been to leave spaces that are "very neutral and discreet," so that the future museum installation will speak to visitors about Gumara's past. "Raw materials" have been used, marès and wood. And everything that has been possible has also been reused, such as the material from the original beams. An effort has been made to maintain as much as possible of what was part of the medieval building.
On the second floor, with a superb Gothic arch located in the area where the guardhouse was in the past, old drawings have been found, which have been restored. The route will not include the Almudaina terrace, as the elevator does not reach it and, therefore, its accessibility is not complete.
“This was a dovecote, it was full of pigeons, it was in very bad condition,” Pons points out about the state of the towers when the intervention began. According to him, “a surgical intervention of maximum precision” was carried out to respect the original space and, at the same time, consolidate the structure, which required acting with great care.
“Everything has been problems,” he concludes. Also with the neighbors, who have expressed their discomfort with the noise and disturbances caused by the renovation works. Now, however, according to the technician, they are satisfied with the new look of the Gumara towers.
Pilar Ribal emphasizes that “respecting the original elements as much as possible” of this old fortification has been one of the priorities of the intervention. “It had been greatly modified” with successive reforms and additions. “It has been a very laborious process”.
From the outset, this rehabilitation has been controversial. The original project by Elies Torres, which served as a starting point for the present intervention, was rejected by the Heritage Commission of the Consell de Mallorca. The reason? It proposed to restore the Islamic construction as it should have been in its origin, in the 12th century, and this meant eliminating everything that had been added later. And the Heritage Commission considered that these elements were also part of the building's past, even if they were not as old and, therefore, should be maintained. The Association for the Revitalization of Old Centers (ARCA) also advocated for lowering the level of the towers, in line with what the architect had proposed.
The towers of the Temple, as the city chronicler, Bartomeu Bestard, explains, were the subject of a profound remodeling at the end of the 19th century: the central body was added between the two towers and the height of each was increased, with the aim of gaining more space, to be used as housing. The bombings of the Civil War also affected the complex, but, basically, the central addition. The businessman Fernando Palazuelo was the owner of the towers of the Temple, until in 2007 the City Council acquired them, through an exchange.
Restoring the Almudaina de Gumara to the medieval appearance it supposedly had in the past, by eliminating the central body and lowering the height of the towers, would not only not have been possible due to a support problem, which is what the restorers have found, but it also does not fit with contemporary criteria for the restoration of historical heritage. These determine that the observer can distinguish between original and added elements, but without reconstructing what no longer exists.
Demolishing the central space between the towers, which was added later, would have, purely and simply, caused "the towers to fall," points out Victòria Pons. The added material on the battlements, on the building's terrace, has also been left, although they can be observed in two very different colors, which allows one to detect at first glance which are the oldest pieces.
A networked city museum
The future museum space of the Temple, according to Pilar Ribal, is part of a much broader project: to constitute a "networked city museum", among a set of buildings that make possible an interpretation of the history of Palma and its successive stages and themes. Currently, this function of a museum of the history of Palma is fulfilled by Bellver Castle.
In the case of the Gumara towers, the contents that have been addressed for the museum project are: an introduction to the medieval era; the defensive functions that the original building performed, especially after the invasion of Pisans and Catalans; the historical stage corresponding to Madina Mayurqa, that is, Islamic Palma; and those that refer to its trajectory under the order of the Temple and, subsequently, the Knights of Malta, two Majorcan brothers of whom, Rafel and Nicolau de Cotoner, were two of the great masters.
The network of this itinerant museum complex, Ribal advances, would also be formed by the basements of Plaça Major, when, once remodeled, it becomes a city interpretation center; the Maimó Ben Faraig Center, on Carrer de l’Almudaina, dedicated to Jewish culture; and Can Serra, which is intended to become in the future an interpretation center of the medieval family in the Christian period. Likewise, she reveals, they would be part of this route, even though they are not municipal facilities, the Museum of Mallorca, regarding prehistory, and this same space and the Museum of Sacred Art, formerly the Diocesan Museum, regarding the Gothic period.
The Palma City Council also plans to organize about forty thematic routes through the city's past, which can be downloaded, in addition to publications, to complete the set of available resources. It is, Ribal points out, a "medium and long-term" plan. "For the moment, the jewel" of this entire project are the Temple towers, already recovered.
What does Gumara of the Temple towers of Palma mean? It is about a Berber tribe from North Africa, whose members moved to Mallorca. Thus, one of the most outstanding heritage elements of the city bears the name of Maghrebi migrants.The Almudaina of Gumara was one of the fortifications built by the Islamic government of Mallorca following the bitter experience of the Pisan and Catalan expedition of 1114. After the conquest of 1229, it became part of the extensive possessions that James I ceded to the Order of the Temple, warrior monks, with whom, incidentally, he had been educated. Hence its name from then on.When the Templar knights were prosecuted and dissolved on the initiative of the French monarch Philip 'the Fair' – grandson of James I – who coveted their assets, the king of Mallorca Sancho I transferred his fortress, “in exchange for a good sum” – according to historian Joan Carles Sastre – to the Order of the Hospital, whose members were also known as the Knights of Malta: these have survived to the present day.The Temple or Almudaina of Gumara was the first headquarters of the infamous Holy Inquisition when it was established in Mallorca in 1488, long before it moved to the now-demolished Casa Negra, in the current Plaça Major. According to Bartomeu Bestard, in the 18th century it was used as a barracks, in 1811 the State confiscated it, like so many other properties of ecclesiastical origin, and from 1820 it passed into private hands. According to Gaspar Valero, the blessing of bread took place in this enclosure during the traditional Pancaritat festival, and the jurors – equivalent to current councilors – distributed this food to hospitals and the poor.The future museum space was used as housing throughout the last century. The Trio Temple, made up of cellist Miriam Rader, violinist Roberto Moragón, and pianist Maria Jesús Salvà, took its name from this space.