Consolidation and restoration of the water tower and caracol mine by HUMA

Project description by HUMA

Defending water as a human maxim by understanding its condition as an inexhaustible source of life that sustains existence is the basis on which the consolidation and restoration works of the Aledo Water Tower are carried out. The works have made it possible to discover new aspects of this masterful defensive building from which to discover part of the history that occurred in the place.

The tower that reached our days was called the Water Tower, dating from the 15th century. Its volumetric recovery is carried out faithful to its imprint following techniques and using materials found in the original medieval building. Thus, the reinforcement and patching work is carried out using in situ formwork of wooden planks filled with white lime, stones and local sand, from which the reddish appearance present on all the slopes is recovered. The tower is thus blended with the surroundings, converted into another rock born from the earth. The plinth retains its claws in its stepped silhouette on its masonry and mortar foundation, while the new canvases executed are made using calicastrated walls following the existing module used in its day of the 0.80 cm Castilian rod from which the walls They rise, recovering the original height of the tower.

The new walls are raised set back, in the shadow of the original ones, setting back their plumb lines and separated with geotextile in an attitude of respect and reverence to what already exists.


Consolidation and restoration of the water tower and caracol mine by HUMA. Photograph by Eva Garcia Millán.

The intervention is not only in the tower, but in its entirety. The environment is your faithful companion, the one that gives you support and meaning. In the intervention, the environment is carefully pampered, cleaned and reforested with local plants, thyme, rosemary, mastic and cistus once again recover the imprint of the place. The tower only makes sense from this place as a singularity found on the slopes of this valley from where the intervention is justified, in its steep orography, as an access point to a Villa de Aledo that lives at the top of it.

A new horn-like door allows access and control to the snail mine located next to the tower that begins its journey at the foot of the hillside to penetrate into the bowels of the earth in its infinite gallery through which the water walked. The door is resolved with a slight gesture, using steel plates that are left to rust, separated from each other so that light can enter and provide the necessary ventilation to the underground passage.

Today the Water Tower has been recovered, its wounds have been healed, showing itself renewed in its proud countenance. Today the story continues, and once again the rock planes come to the place in their avid flight, once again the scorpion finds shelter in the stone and the song of the cicadas accompanies with its melody in the shadow of the branch.