Restoration of the Casa de las Conchas

Dating of the building: Around 1492.

Applicant: Agromán.

Reason for the award :

For the complex and advanced restoration project of a 15th-century building.

In the restoration of the most representative building in Salamanca, the patio was disassembled and cleaned ashlar by ashlar in a laboratory built in situ before being reassembled, a technique used for the first time in Spain.

The Casa de las Conchas is the most representative building in Salamanca. Its unprecedented exterior decoration of shells, an allusion to the apostle’s symbol, and by extension to the Order of Santiago, to which its founder, Talavera Maldonado, counselor of Isabel la Católica, has contributed to its fame. The building is one of the first to separate from the strict Gothic, adding Mudejar and Renaissance elements.

Its restoration, the project of the Ministry of Culture, was carried out to install the State Public Library there. The long-abandoned situation of the famous building made it necessary to dismantle and replace the entire courtyard ashlar by ashlar, restoring each one in a laboratory set up in the same courtyard using a  technique  carried out for the first time in Spain. Work was also done on the replacement of all those beams consumed by termites, the consolidation of the walls by injecting cement mortar, and cleaning the characteristic golden stone of Valmayor. The result was the complete rebirth to one of the symbols of the city.

Others awards in Castilla y León: