The Mosque-Cathedral of Córdoba exceeds 50 million restorations during its 40 years of World Heritage listing

This Saturday, the Mosque-Cathedral of Córdoba celebrates forty years as a World Heritage Site and when talking about it, metaphors and comparisons continue to be more valid and accurate than pure descriptions. Even those who know it best having never stopped working on it during this period, even before the declaration of UNESCOthey must use literary resources.

This is how it begins Gabriel Rebollowho, with Gabriel Ruiz Cabrero, arrived as an architect in the early 1980s, to speak about the great monument of Córdoba: “It has the virtue of works of art, that we really love them the first time we see them and that tenth time you love them “I love it even more.”

Its architectural values ​​are numerous, and the perspective, the play of space and light are visible to everyone, but there is much more: “Architecture, like a novel, can be read. This serves to tell us a long story and I believe that this building offers the possibility of teaching us this long history, because it is alive. “When a document is saved to a file, no one reads it.” The key to all this, for Gabriel Rebollo, is in usage.

To continue the comparison of the document, “it can be read while living it, and without life it is like a score music that no one performs. And all this arises from its usefulness, “to be the Cathedral of Córdoba”, with all the uses of worship, culture and daily life.

The way of approaching what happened during these forty years in the Mosque-Cathedral can be twofold: qualitative and quantitative. The second offers figures, and figures for constant restorations, from the most ambitious to those of maintaining the covers and chapels. This figure has exceeded 50 million euros over the past four decades.

Constant works

The vast majority corresponds to Cathedral convertedto the owner of the building. It was only between 1993 and 2012 that this figure already reached twenty million euros, a period during which major works were undertaken such as the restoration of the bell tower, which lasted several years, and especially the work on the presbytery, transept and choir, in the heart of the Catholic cathedral. There were two phases. The first, which concerned the main chapel, was undertaken alone by the Cabildo, for a little over 2.5 million euros.

The second, launched in 2006, was central governmentwith Carmen Calvo as Minister of Culture, and required an investment of 3.4 million euros. Since then, the Cabildo has provided timely information on its actions and on what it has allocated to the conservation of the monument: more than 5.5 million in 2018 and almost three in 2019 were used for the constant improvement of the roofs, but also for catering. of Christian chapels, some as important as that of the Conversion of Saint Paul or of doors, a process still in progress. In 2020 and 2021, due to the pandemic, the rate was lower, but in 2023 it exceeded one million again.

Two major actions are now underway. That of the Cabildo maqsoura It extends over several years and will require an investment of 3.8 million euros to recover the domes and restore the vaults, which are among the most precious treasures of the temple.

The artistic restoration of the Royal Chapel is nearing completion, carried out by the central government for just over half a million, although the chapter institution had already invested in roofs and conservation.

Is the Mosque-Cathedral changing with all these restorations? Since 1984 until today, the works have sought above all not only not to tear out the pages, but also to make those that were written shine. There is a sentence from Gabriel Rebollo which is more than a beautiful sentence: “What we love, we must be able to transform it“. And it is precisely the way in which the monument has evolved over its almost 1,300 years of existence that also reflects the relationship that the people of Córdoba have had with it.

That’s why it kept changing: “If it was like when it was just a mosque, maybe it would seem more beautiful to us than today, although I doubt it , but it would be less interesting than now, because the history sticks to the building. At this time, the monument took a further step: UNESCO recognized it as a property of exceptional universal value for the conservation and interest of all its elements.

Its history can be divided into two main parts, and the first would be that which goes from the beginning of its construction, in the 8th century, until the first decades of the 19th century. Since then it has continued to grow, from Abderramán I starting it “on what would probably be a Christian church” to the enlargements and enrichments of Abderramán II, as well as a little of Abderramán III, Alhakén II and Almanzor.

After the Reconquista, says the architect, the love and fascination for the building began to become evident: if the great mosques of Seville, Toledo, Valencia or Zaragoza were destroyed to build the new cathedrals on the same site, Cordoba respected its own and limited itself to creating new Christian chapels without altering the essential the design that the building already had.

The fundamental moment dates from 1815, when in the Mosque-Cathedral, according to Gabriel Rebollo, what could be the oldest restoration ever recorded took place: that promoted by a bishop influenced by the ideas of the Illustration and for new air.

Stone of Antonio de Trevilla opened a new stage when he decided to remove the chapel of San Pedro, installed after the Reconquista, to discover the maqsura and the mihrab, and with them not only the heart of the Muslim period, but a unique place with the imprint of the Byzantine mosaics. The objective was to find the origins, which is why work was also carried out on the Villaviciosa chapel, in the Gothic cathedral.

Thus, the major interventions continued until the 20th century and the building was declared a world heritage site in November 1984. Gabriel Rebollo continues with the metaphors: “We did not want tear out pages of the history of the building, because it seems to us that it has a very interesting biography.

Of what has been done in recent years, the recovery of the roofs stands out, which has allowed the monument to avoid many problems. Of course, the dictatorship’s plans to remove power cruise and leave the forest of columns bare, because he is in favor of treating the monument in a unitary manner and not of simplifying it. Hernán Ruiz I’s intervention may have been controversial, but it is now part of history.

Because it warns of one thing: the Mosque-Cathedral is not a gothic cathedral French, “which is Gothic from the foundations to the last summit”, and has only this style. The superposition and integration of languages, cultures and styles constitute one of the singularities of the temple.

The importance of the building is such that it transcends to have an impact on the city. Raimundo Ortiz He is the archaeologist of the Cathedral Chapter and works with a large multidisciplinary team in the investigation and analysis of the data that appears with each of the actions.

“The most important thing is that it is a reflection of the evolution of the city of Córdoba, because it is the place where the inhabitants of Córdoba have been going to pray for a long time,” he summarizes. From the episcopal complex that appeared under the Orange Tree Court to the Umayyad mosque then to the Christian cathedral.

Archaeologists have learned what is buried beneath the building, which could date back to the 5th century, but also what is visible to the naked eye. “When a chapel is restored, you see what other spaces were part of the mosque-cathedral in previous times, or what Islamic elements were where this chapel is now, or even what elements have been moved,” explains -he.

Raimundo Ortiz tells how new knowledge about the building emerges from the work of his team, in which the Department of Archeology of the University of Córdoba also collaborates.

The most unknown, he insists, is the transformation of the Islamic mosque, very well studied, into a Christian cathedral. “There are a lot of things that reflect what the city was, the building models “what was used, how it was restored,” explains Raimundo Ortiz about a work in which we can trace the entire history of the mosque-cathedral. How the monument continues to transform over the following decades without ever ceasing to be the same will depend on the restorations that continue.