Developers: Xunta de Galicia, Concello de Cerdedo-Cotobade
Architect who wrote the project and Director of the construction site: Cristina García Fontán.
Located: Parroquia de San Xurxo de Sacos, Concello de Cerdedo- Cotobade, Pontevedra. https://goo.gl/maps/StB4DJyNthBv4Rv18
Investment for the recuperation project: 700.000€.
The fundamental objective of the project is the recovery of a fluvial environment of great beauty and the enhancement of medicinal mining waters. With the intervention the patrimonial elements are recovered (the space of the old spa and the power plant that was in ruins) and ethnographic (4 mills and some annexed buildings), of the environment, clarifying the routes and recovering that fluvial landscape that was colonized by invasive and abandoned species.
The memory of the place was there, hidden under the undergrowth and in ruins. The illusion of many neighbors to see it recovered was the engine of the project along with the involvement of the regional administrations (Xunta de Galicia) and municipal (Council of Cerdedo-Cotobade).
It was proposed the rehabilitation of an old power plant as a thermal bath to create a meeting and well-being place for neighbors and visitors to the place.
An activity that can also function as an economic and social activator for the town, recovering a small-scale thermal bath tourism existing until the middle of the twentieth century.
The new uses keep the water as a plot thread. The strength of the River Lérez gives way to the softness of the sulphurous waters (which have therapeutic properties) and which sprout from different points of the river slopes.
The recovery of this industrial heritage converges with many cultural initiatives and natural values of the environment, resulting in a project of several scales, including the development of a Pact for Landscape among various institutions (Institute of Studies of Territory, Consellería de Medio Ambiente, Territorio y Vivienda de la Xunta de Galicia, the Council of Cerdedo-Cotobade, neighbourhood associations, etc.). in order to achieve the protection and management of the “meanders of the River Lérez” as a landscape system.
The development and recovery of such a complex territorial area requires cooperation between institutions and neighbours. Participation and management processes were key to the development and implementation of the project.
