The Madrid City Council has begun the studies prior to the restoration work that is planned to be carried out in the Fountain of Neptune, in the Plaza de Cánovas del Castillo, with the aim of returning the splendor to the complex designed by the architect Ventura Rodríguez and presided over this Roman god of the sea.
During this Tuesday, restoration experts and technicians from the company Garanza Rehabilitación S.L. They have been moved to this source to determine what state it is in through different tasks such as taking samples, cleaning tests with different methods such as aqueous or microabrasion. These first steps of field work are complemented with different tests in the laboratory, as the head of the Garanza restoration department, Macarena Sanz, explained to the media.
“The history of each monument defines the treatment. The same thing does not work in one group or another, even if it is the same type of stone. We take samples to later, in the laboratory, determine the degree of cohesion of the stone , see the absorption by water capacity and also to test the different restoration products. This will allow us to know, of the different products, which ones work best, which ones will last longer without yellowing or which ones penetrate the most. tests, we obtain numerical data that will allow us to draw graphs and give us objective data with which to compare and decide the most appropriate restoration processes,” Sanz detailed.
Likewise, the expert has pointed out during these previous studies that the main degradation problem that the Neptuno complex presents is the dirt caused, among other factors, by the pollution of road traffic that circulates through the capital. “The most visible thing is always the dirt, this is a white marble fountain and obviously it doesn’t look like it. Road traffic does a lot and dirties our monuments in a significant way because in addition that pollution combines with humidity, it creates an acidic environment that then already degrades the stone. Beyond looking dirty, it is an acidity problem. What is most obvious is the degradation due to dirt,” he clarified.
In addition to the general dirt, Sanz has also detailed that the fountain has open fissures or old mortars that no longer work. “The glass is the most affected area since the base is the one that suffers the most, because it is where the water stagnates and where a proliferation of microorganisms occurs, but it is true that, in general, dirt affects everything. Then There are things that we do not see, that we only notice under the microscope, such as a high porosity of the stone, which causes it to absorb too much water and increase degradation,” indicated the person responsible for the restoration.
During the first inspection and sampling, technicians from the Monument Intervention Unit of the Madrid City Council were also present supervising these tasks. Regarding the state of conservation of the complex, the head of the unit, Gemma Sanz Calvo, has focused on thermal stress. “Especially the issue of cracking in the joints. The pieces are quarry-sized and have to be joined with those mortars. And those mortars are constantly with water, cold, heat during the day, cold at night. This thermal stress produces cracking. Then those cracks will have to be lifted and new lime mortars placed. And with all the tests that are being carried out, it will be determined which mortar is placed, which product will be used for cleaning,” Gemma Sanz explained.
The work will foreseeably start during the month of September after the hottest days of the Madrid summer in order to be able to “safely” use the products that the technicians require to be able to carry out the restoration work, since, as has been explained the Garanza company’s technique, “some of them can boil if they suffer these extreme temperatures.” This action is framed in the Monument Conservation Plan of the General Directorate of Cultural Heritage, has an execution period of three months and has an investment of 17,600 euros.
The Neptune Fountain had already been the subject of various restoration works in 2017 and another in 2020, although on a smaller scale. “These are restorations that have to be done gradually because, well, look where it is, in the heart of the Landscape of Light. We have to pamper these monuments a little,” stressed the head of the Intervention Unit.
This monument is part of the Salón del Prado, a valley over which the lower Abroñigal stream, also called Castellana, ran. It had two parts, the San Jerónimo meadow and the Atocha meadow. Until the last third of the 18th century it was a rural and suburban area. In 1767, one of the capital’s momentous reforms began, which involved the creation of the first major road axis, which was later extended and has served to articulate the two most important sectors of the city, the historic center and the nineteenth-century expansion with three Sculptural landmarks, the fountains of Cybele and Neptune (Poseidon for the Greeks), at the ends and the fountain of Apollo in the center. The stone that we now want to pamper in order to return light to this jewel of the Madrid street is white marble, whose origin is found in Montesclaros, Toledo.
“The person in charge of the fountain project was Ventura Rodríguez, which was completed in 1786. Carlos III wanted to implant mythology in this area of ??Madrid and, in the case of Neptune, it represents the god of the sea, with tritons that emerge of the waves, really the bottom part is the sea, it is making all those curves representing the sea. The float is a seashell with blades, and well, it has some details that are spectacular, Ventura Rodríguez’s hand-drawn project is. beautiful, then the project changed a little, but it is wonderful”, highlighted the head of the Monuments Intervention Unit of the Madrid City Council, Gemma Sanz.
As part of Ventura Rodríguez’s original project, both fountains were, at first, facing each other, facing each other on one side of the Paseo del Prado. Both Cibeles and Neptuno underwent restructuring and relocation processes at the end of the 19th century, finally occupying the spaces where we find them today, the center of the Cibeles and Cánovas del Castillo squares, respectively.
The Fountain of Apollo closes the group projected in the imagination of Charles III and which, curiously, is the “greatly forgotten” one compared to its sisters. The iconography of Apollo, god of Greek and Roman mythology, has been extensive, although his main identification has been with the sun, related to the power, generosity and creative and leading capacity of the deity. His main attributes were the bow and arrow, as well as the lyre, and he could be accompanied by the four seasons. On the Paseo del Prado, the god Apollo represents the absolute monarch, who attentively and eternally watches over the people of Madrid from his central position, between the fountains of Cybele and Neptune, which represent agriculture and colonial trade, two of the economic bases. of the moment.
