History takes us
to the south-east of the Autonomous Community of Madrid,
near the Barcelona road
and well-known villages such as Loeches or Campo Real.
This is the village of Nuevo Baztán,
a dream which became a reality over 300 years ago.
We enter its streets thanks to the geo-monumental routes,
which arose as a consequence of the results of the investigations
of the Geo-materials group of the Geo-sciences Institute
of the Scientific Research Council
and the Complutense University of Madrid.
From the start,
they received funding from the Autonomous Community of Madrid
and the support of the Madrimasd Foundation,
through initiatives such as the Madrid Science Week
and the madrimasd website.
On this occasion, we discover Nuevo Baztán,
the result of the determination of its founder, Juan de Goyeneche,
who wanted to build a manufacturing town
on barren land to the south of Alcalá.
There, together with the architect José Benito de Churriguera,
he constructed a small industrial town laid out on a grid plan
and with buildings decorated in such a way
that some have described it as a feast of the Churrigueresque style.
The monumental complex of Nuevo Baztán,
just 46 kilometres from the centre of Madrid,
includes the Church, the Palace, the Church Square,
the Market Square and the Plaza de Fiestas,
which, together with the rest of the historic constructions,
comprise a Baroque village
built to house the artisans and workers
of the factories that were set up there.
Living history of Madrid
which now struggles against the ravages of time.
As you stroll around its streets,
you have the sensation of being accompanied by the ghosts
of those who placed their trust in the visionary Goyeneche
and gave life to a kind of early industrial estate.
Its inhabitants, of which there are barely 60 in the historic centre,
are aware that they are part of the modern history of Madrid,
and, though they are resigned
to the physical deterioration of their treasures,
they are aware of the responsibility of living in a village
created with a number of precepts:
history, functionality and Baroque art.
Goyeneche and Churriguera are two figures
who not only were important in the history of Spain
at the end of the 17th century and the start of the 18th,
they were also important for Nuevo Baztán.
Churriguera was an architect
from a very important family of architects and sculptors,
who themselves coined the term 'Churrigueresque',
and who not only designed major buildings,
mausoleums and altarpieces,
but also Nuevo Baztán, commissioned by Goyeneche,
and together they created the entire complex of Nuevo Baztán.
Goyeneche, as we said, was a man ahead of his time,
born in Navarre in the Baztán Valley,
hence the name Nuevo Baztán.
Because he was ahead of his time, he was familiar with
the economic theories and those of Colbertism which, at that time,
were being put forward in France,
and he incorporated them into his great business project
which is the Nuevo Baztán complex.
Around this Palace-Church and the three squares,
the grid plan is structured,
of parallel and intersecting streets,
and the industrial and agricultural complex then expanded
as and when new industries were incorporated
into this large industrial complex.
A sculpture of Juan de Goyeneche receives visitors
and welcomes them to the Interpretation Centre,
which, since 2003,
has been responsible for preserving and spreading
the memory of Nuevo Baztán.
Its products, its workshops and its history,
all of this in former wine cellars,
which, like the rest, still conserve the original structures.
From there, it manages the image of today's Nuevo Baztán,
its architecture and its monumental complex.
Its purpose is to inform visitors about Goyeneche,
about Churriguera and about Nuevo Baztán,
why Nuevo Baztán was built at a place where there was nothing,
what happened here,
the reasons why all these factories were created.
Through a series of models, an audiovisual presentation
and a reproduction of all the objects
which, centuries ago, were manufactured here,
visitors gain a clear idea of what Nuevo Baztán was like,
what was manufactured, what was produced
and why the Nuevo Baztán project was so important
for the history of the district, Madrid and Spain.
The Nuevo Baztán complex is sometimes described
as 'rural Baroque', which is an important characteristic.
Why is it called that?
Because of the grid plan,
the way the six streets which comprise it are structured,
the original village of the industrial complex,
which was then copied and exported to other localities in Andalusia.
It was created in order to be able to grow.
As the industries grew, that grid layout expanded.
The Nuevo Baztán complex,
we might think is just stone structures
which are not used for anything, but that is not true.
Each building, though not in their entirety,
but many of them are put to used, mainly related to tourism.
The palace has been renovated and refurbished
by the Autonomous Community of Madrid as an exhibition centre,
workshops, and conference rooms on the lower floors.
The rest of the palace, though not 100%,
can be visited, it forms part of the tourist visits.
The church built by Churriguera,
together with its altarpiece, is the parish church.
The Plaza de Fiestas forms part of the tourist routes,
and in the summer it is used as a cultural centre,
for all kinds of music concerts, shows, workshops, dramatised visits,
and also open-air cinema, which, in Nuevo Baztán,
can be enjoyed throughout the summer months.
The interpretation centre, which was originally the wine cellars,
and many of the historic buildings,
which were previously used as factories,
are now either municipal buildings
or privately-owned houses,
particularly the houses that used to be occupied by artisans,
they have been taken over by new owners,
who live in them on a permanent basis.
The swallows and swifts, native to the area,
have the very best view of the grid plan designed by Churriguera.
And within it, the main elements of the complex are arranged,
easily visible from the sky,
and also with our feet on the ground,
thanks to the easily-recognisable grid layout.
The Palace and the Church share a façade and both were declared
a Site of Historical and Artistic Importance in 1941.
The former, once the residence of Goyeneche
and today an exhibition centre, is a double example,
on the one hand of the rural Baroque,
and, on the other hand, of the work of Churriguera.
The main entrance to the palace
is framed by the typical Madrid-style moulding.
And at a glance we can observe
the interesting elements which make up this construction.
The lion, whose jaws hold the chequerboard shield of Baztán,
the heraldic symbol of the Baztán Valley,
where Goyeneche came from,
and which is repeated at various places around the village.
This coat of arms was probably added later,
because Goyeneche did not have any title of nobility whatsoever.
Particular mention should be made of the palace tower,
whose height and balustrades create the majesty that Goyeneche sought.
In the past, only the birds and the powerful
could enjoy the inner courtyard of the palace.
Today, all visitors can enter it and enjoy
the calm that surrounds the well in its centre.
Immediately adjacent to it, we come to the church,
without a doubt the jewel of the complex.
To either side of the body of the portico,
two enormous towers rise up covered by four-sided slate roofs
and crowned by spires and weather vanes.
An entablature, supported on four columns
and framed by a semi-circular arch
with fine Baroque moulding, welcomes the visitor.
The figure of San Francisco Javier, the patron saint of Navarre,
where Goyeneche's family came from, invites us to enter.
Once inside,
we discover the altarpiece which Churriguera created
and which remains intact.
This holy place holds secrets from the civil war, or royal gifts,
such as this coffer which the wife of Felipe V
gave to Goyeneche's wife.
In the vestry, there are more original treasures,
and, among them, the entrance to the crypt,
the former parish cemetery,
which today houses a collection of earthenware vessels,
while the limestone weeps with the passing of time,
creating small stalactites in full view of the visitors.
It is not the only underground space in the village.
In fact, the experts tell us
that there are a number of tunnels which connect all the houses.
Though the danger of collapse means that only this one,
which starts in the central courtyard, can be visited,
and in it you can see the large vessels that are still conserved.
It is now the turn of the squares,
notably the Plaza Mayor, on which the main façade stands.
Its Baroque fountain, recently restored, presides over the square.
Diagonally to the grid designed by Churriguera,
stands the Market Square, also known as the Square of the Secret.
Its original use was commercial, though little of that now remains.
Today, a very recent restoration
highlights the lustre of the materials.
The fountain and the step on one side were added later,
the step precisely so that the ground
can support the weight over the crypt of the church.
Finally, we enter the Plaza de Fiestas,
surrounded by the craftsmen's houses.
Today, the patron saint's festivities
are still celebrated here,
but it was originally conceived to host bullfights,
and yes, it is rectangular.
The craftsmen's houses, inhabited until the 1960s,
were neglected, almost becoming ruins,
but we can still see reminders of a better past,
when all kinds of artisans lived and worked there,
surrounded by their colleagues and neighbours.
Once curious detail:
the arches of the front doors are staggered,
another one of Churriguera's innovations,
which he successfully used in Nuevo Baztán.
Nuevo Baztán would not be what it is
if it was not for a very special type of stone found in this area.
We are talking about limestone.
Nuevo Baztán is another example of this practical,
effective technique, dictated by common sense:
it is built using the material which was available.
Therefore, limestone, in this case from the moors, is the protagonist.
Those responsible for organising the geo-monumental routes
carried out an exhaustive analysis of the condition
of the materials used in Nuevo Baztán.
Cities always tend to use the geological resources
available in the surrounding area.
Thus, Madrid,
has very considerable resources of natural stone for construction.
We have, for example, granite,
known in Spanish as 'Berroqueña' stone,
which comes mainly from the Guadarrama mountains.
Other construction materials have also been used,
such as limestone and dolomites, belonging to the Madrid basin.
The dolomites, mainly from the Cretaceous period,
the limestones from the Tertiary period,
we are talking about five or ten million years ago,
and then, flint has also been used in construction.
In the specific case of Nuevo Baztán,
the only materials that exist in the surrounding area are the limestones.
For the construction of the monumental complex of Nuevo Baztán,
the so-called 'moorland limestone' has been used,
that can be found in the area around Nuevo Baztán.
It is a rock composed of calcium carbonate,
which was formed in what once was a lake...
between 5 and 10 million years ago.
Knowing that,
it comes as no surprise to learn that near Nuevo Baztán
we can find some of the quarries
from which the moorland limestone was extracted.
The trained eye can even make out
where the quarrying cuts were made
and how the limestone itself
varies in colour depending on its composition.
On the way to the quarry, about four kilometres away,
we come across another of the secrets of this historic village.
A natural spring, according to the legend,
Felipe the Fifth ordered water to be collected from here,
to enjoy its supposed magical benefits.
This area, south-east Madrid,
has certain, very specific geological characteristics.
In the area around Nuevo Baztán,
thanks to this natural lookout point,
we can observe the composition of the land
and even the quarrying activity.
Among the colours offered to us by nature,
we find villages and, of course,
their respective sources of materials.
And one more detail of the richness, in this case historic,
of the land on which Nuevo Baztán stands.
Barely six kilometres away,
we find the remains of the 40-days Train,
which, according to the legend, was built in 40 days
to carry supplies to Madrid,
which was under siege by Franco's troops.
Nuevo Baztán stands on this moorland limestone.
This moorland limestone
is a geological formation which can be found
in different sedimentary basins from the Tertiary period,
such as the Duero basin in Palencia,
in the Tagus basin, and in the Madrid basin.
Because the moorland limestone on which Nuevo Baztán stands
belongs to the Madrid basin.
It is a geological formation composed of limestones,
which, in the case of Nuevo Baztán, is something like 20 metres thick,
and it gives rise to this land relief typical of plateaus.
These limestones are resistant to the processes of erosion
and they therefore jut out from the general topography,
And that surface, which is the surface of the moors,
is created by the so-called moorland limestones.
Back in Nuevo Baztán, we take a closer look
at the material used to construct the historic monumental complex,
including the craftsmen's houses
and the buildings which surround the main ones,
which, in the past, were fully functional.
Today, those that remain fully standing, which is not all of them,
are the homes of the villagers, who refuse to forget history.
The stone used in Nuevo Baztán to construct both the palace
and all the other architectural elements is mainly of two types.
They are limestones of whitish and ochre appearance,
whose fundamental characteristics attest to their lake formation,
such as the great abundance of algaceous elements,
notably the presence of characeae,
the fossil remains of algae, or the presence of oncolites.
This indicates tranquil environments during the formation of these rocks.
And, like all limestones, with the passing of time,
it suffers the ravages of age.
Apart from the pollution caused by people and also animals,
and not forgetting the biological colonisation
present throughout the complex,
there is also the natural wearing of the limestone,
which goes through different processes.
Limestone is a rock, a stony material,
which, due to its chemical composition, calcium carbonate,
is very sensitive to two types of deterioration processes.
One is atmospheric pollution,
which occurs in urban areas, which is not the case here.
And the other is alteration due to the presence of water,
all the processes of freezing and melting,
the crystallisation of salts, in which water plays a part,
will cause it to crumble.
The entire urban core of Nuevo Baztán
is prone to the presence of these sinkholes.
A large sinkhole under the ground, which, on the one hand,
can generate a series of risks in the stability of the buildings.
In fact, in 1974, a large crack appeared in the tower of the palace,
which ran from the cornice
almost to the bottom of the windows on the first floor,
causing some parts to fall off.
Also, the tower on the right of the church
has suffered some settling processes,
which means that it has a slight inclination from the vertical.
Those are the negative effects
of the presence of sinkholes in the substratum.
But, as advantages,
it may have made it easier to construct the cellars,
because those sinkholes are filled with detritic material,
a very clayey material that is much easier to excavate,
to construct the cellars and the tunnels.
And, on the other hand, those sinkholes
form an aquifer which accumulates the rainwater, and therefore
permits the circulation and the supply of water
to this entire area.
This also means
that the groundwater level rises during times of rain,
in turn causing flooding of the tunnels and cellars.
In addition to biological colonisation,
we can also observe problems related
to the presence of flaking, fissures, parts coming away.
All of them caused not only by the ageing of the construction,
but also by deficient actions in the past.
The change of colour of the pigmentation of the wall is evident,
and in some place it has turned an intense red.
Another notable aspect,
due to the frequency and originaliy of its use,
is the presence of a patina
which covers virtually the entire wall of the palace and the church.
Originally, when it was applied,
it was like a lime water to which plaster was also added.
Pigments were added to it to give it colour, earth oxides,
and, most important of all, and what most differentiates it,
was the addition of an organic product.
We believe that, almost certainly,
they added products derived from milk,
or simply milk itself or dairy products such as cheese.
What that organic substance does is provide this layer
with additional protection, as the fats are transformed,
together with the pigments and the minerals,
into a mineralised layer with a high degree of resistance.
It is very difficult to know exactly which raw material they used,
but, generally, it involved mixing binding substances,
such as lime and plaster, with some kind of organic additive,
which could be anything from milk, which we believe is the case here,
to blood, animal hair, etc.
This has occurred throughout history.
I think I can say
that we are a worldwide reference in the field of patinas like this
and we have studied this particular one,
and, under the microscope we have been able to differentiate
three different applications,
which means that work was carried out
for maintenance and conservation of the façades.
Close visual examination of the wall of the palace tower
can be rather devastating.
You can see stone coming away,
places where urgent attention is needed,
and the remains of poor interventions,
as well as the elements which make its conservation difficult,
such as remains of cement mortars,
which experts now rule out for this kind of maintenance.
Nuevo Baztán requires more dedicated,
carefully-planned maintenance,
which is where the Autonomous Community of Madrid comes in,
as well as Cultural Heritage and Historical Heritage,
which dedicate the most time, effort and money,
in order to restore the entire complex created by Goyeneche.
The façades have to be cleaned, weeds have to be cleared away,
the roofs, the stuccos,
the interiors, the mouldings, all require attention.
In other words, dedicated work is needed, day after day,
so that nothing deteriorates
and nothing is allowed to further damage the entire complex.
The work that has been carried out on the palace
has mainly been one-off interventions,
aimed, on the one hand,
at renovating the interior of the palace to house
permanent or itinerant exhibitions,
as well as the work that has been carried out on the squares,
the Plaza de la Fiesta,
where some work has been done on the entrance arches,
as well as all the work
on what are known as the craftsmen's houses.
With regard to the types of stone,
we have sought to ensure that the materials are as similar as possible
to those originally used in this construction.
Though, by necessity, some have been changed,
for example, the mortars.
Originally, lime mortars were used,
because this area is rich in limestones
and so there were many lime kilns.
And, after all the different interventions and restorations,
those lime mortars have turned into cement mortars,
which are less noble, less forgiving materials,
and they can cause different kinds of damage,
especially those used in the past.
Beyond the need for the conservation of Nuevo Baztán,
it is undeniable that this village, estate
and series of factories is a relic of the past.
The splendid result of a conversation between a businessman,
who today we would call an entrepreneur,
and the finest architect of the age.
A complex which was conceived as a revolutionary idea
and which laid the bases for what, many years later,
would be called industrial estates.
Master craftsmen from all over Europe
travelled to Nuevo Baztán and turned it into their new home.
Today, Nuevo Baztán is a small village with a great history,
which this ancient elm has been a privileged witness to.
This is just one of the many trees which Goyeneche
ordered to be planted along this avenue
to provide shade to those who came from Madrid.
The villagers still dream
about that meeting between Goyeneche and Churriguera,
who, starting with a blank sheet,
managed to construct a Baroque masterpiece
and, from the geological point of view,
an experiment in limestone worthy of examination year after year.