The town of Vilassar de Mar (Maresme) has mobilized to save the iconic building of the Palomares restaurant, on the Almadraba beach, from the demolition decreed by the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (Miteco), in compliance with a inflexible and renewed Law of Coasts.
In the first instance, the City Council, as reported by its mayor, Damià del Clot, will promote the necessary administrative measures to stop the demolition of the building, decreed for May 13. “We will do the impossible,” says the first mayor. Initially they will try it by decreeing the cultural asset of local interest (BCIL) and will urge to extend the protection with a cultural asset of national interest (BCIN) for what they require the involvement of the Generalitat.
Both the City Council and the Bricbarca entity, the motor of nautical activities in the municipality, and the Vilassar de Mar nautical studies center, whose spokesperson is the dean of the Barcelona Nautical Faculty, the tireless preserver of nautical culture Agustí Martín Mallofré, promote a large cultural project to protect the Palomares building, although the restoration activity will cease shortly after exhausting the concessions that have been held since 1960.
This same week, political and civil society representatives from Vilassar de Mar will travel to the Miteco headquarters to present the great cultural project that will have as one of the axes the Palomares building, the Almadraba Maritime Interpretation and Activation Center. It is, according to Agustí Martín, an innovative interpretation center that would settle in the emblematic building. “We can save it if we convert it into a public space”, in this cultural and sports case.
The center will be a point of cultural activity that, apart from recovering the historical memory of the traps, provides a workshop for “mestres d’aixa”, the great riverside artisans who built the wooden boats that settled during the last century on the Catalan coast.
The Palomares would be one of the four projected vertices, together with the Museu de la Marina, which has an eminent collection of nautical objects; the Escola Nàutica, whose imposing headquarters on Trafalgar street could be the museum space dedicated to the 19th century of the Catalan navy, and the historic bathing booths of the Garbí breakwater, also threatened.
If the ministry agrees to preserve the building on the condition that it be used for cultural and sporting purposes, Vilassar de Mar could have new spaces dedicated to the culture of the sea. The Palomares would be the great cultural center, with classrooms, conference rooms and equipment for entities. In the basement of the building, at the foot of the beach, the popular nautical boats would be located, such as the traditional llaguts and even old boats to be repaired in the mestre d’aixa courses.
The center would host the Mar i Ultramar summer university –which has already been held for 17 editions– and activities such as the university chair of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC). It would have facilities for doctoral students in Marine Sciences or spaces for end-of-degree or master’s students, and also for local schoolchildren who are already “studying how to build their own boat.”
The promoters of the initiative have established agreements with several entities to guarantee the necessary impetus to the initiative that would prevent the demolition of the Palomares. Thus, entities such as the Barcelona Maritime Museum, the Nautical Faculty, the Institute of Marine Sciences, the CSIC or the Fundación Cousteau del Estartit would have shown their interest in collaborating.
