Núñez de Arce High School

“The passage of the centuries through the city has in many cases left singular testimonies, both spatial: squares, streets, promenades, gardens, etc., and architectural: churches, palaces, monuments that it would be a stupid crime to destroy. Faced with a monumental city, the urbanistic dilemma has arisen of stratifying it, stopping it, dissecting it, to be presented as a museum object, or else to go more or less slowly, incorporating it into present-day life, with the danger, of course, of actually destroying its archaeological values. I sincerely believe that both of these attitudes are wrong, and the only correct way to seriously tackle the urban planning problem of a monumental city is to study and bravely establish a hierarchy of its constituent factors and then arrange them according to that hierarchy. Of course, this study and hierarchy of factors is always a subjective task of judgement and also a subjective work of criteria and also of the sensibility of the town planner. The static problems of these adjustments of the old city require a museographic treatment of the most exquisite sensitivity and their coexistence settings require an exceptionally cultured civic education. All of which does not suggest very optimistic prospects for our monumental cities. And I would like to warn that, as painful as the loss of the monumental values of our cities due to neglect and abandonment is, I fear even more the restorations and refurbishments, carried out with clumsy archaeological and town planning criteria.” “El paso de los siglos por la ciudad ha dejado en muchos casos testimonios singulares, tanto espaciales: plazas, calles, paseos, jardines, etc., como arquitectónicos: iglesias, palacios, monumentos que sería un estúpido crimen destruir.