“An ancient wonder” in the heart of Andalusia, “the most unknown jewel of our country”, “a place that could be Petra but is in Seville.” These are some of the things being said about the (increasingly viral) sanctuary of Canteras de Osuna, and do a little digging to understand that it’s no wonder.

Original. Petra in Jordan is a Nabataean site famous for magnificent structures carved into the same rock in the narrow valley where it was built 25 centuries ago. The Quarries reserve (or at least the part of it that resembles the Jordanian city) was built in 2004 with the intention of turning it into the largest natural auditorium in Europe. Another report said, “There is no need to travel thousands of kilometers to look for the architectural wonders we can find in our country.”

This is true. The problem is, they didn’t have this technology 25 years ago.

“Petra of Andalusia”. Stone blocks have been quarried from Coto de las Canteras de Osuna for thousands of years, but it closed its doors in the 60s. In the following years, they began to fill this place as part of the movement to improve the country’s landscape and environment. It wasn’t until 1999 that a local businessman, Jesús Ramos, saved the place to turn it into a space where all kinds of events could be held.

In 2004, the estate hired Francisco Valdivia to “create a series of sculptures and reliefs replicating Iberian works both outside and inside the quarry.” The result is a very interesting proposition, as you can see in the images. In fact, it was Vargas Llosa himself who inspired the popular “title”, saying he felt “like in the heart of Petra” after an event in Coto de las Canteras.

Best marketing campaign of recent times? Coto de las Canteras is still a private enterprise that plays its cards well (with more or less support from the city council of Ursaón and the council of Seville). It is clear that this is a modern recreation area reminiscent of the city of Jordan, rather than an “Andalusian Petra” (a historical site). And the fact that it has recently gone viral on the shoulders of a somewhat misleading media approach would be funny if it weren’t a symptom of something bigger.

But to see it in perspective, we need to take a little journey.

Bilbao, 90s. The city of Nervión has been one of the most important ports in the world for the past half century. Almost a third of the world’s steel was transported from the estuary, but the 20th century had been a very difficult one and, following transformations in the 1980s, it had become “Spain’s least hospitable city”.

According to Bilbao officials, there was money and an industrial ‘elephant graveyard’. They decided to build the “greatest building of the century” as part of a series of measures that would save the city, its estuary and the remnants left behind by Basque industry when it died. This is where the decision to cancel the reform of the Alhóndiga and the construction of the Guggenheim became not just a symbolic move, but one with much broader urban scope. It’s a good game.

Very good. To quote the BBC: “The new ultra-modernist development has attracted large numbers of tourists. New income has spurred the regeneration of the city’s waterfront, and new bars, cafés and other businesses have sprung up, many of them high-tech. There are now six Michelins. A town with a population of just 350,000.” star restaurants in the city “In a very, very short period of time, the face of Bilbao has really changed,” explained Hileman Waitoller.

So good, in fact, that it deters analysis. And indeed the idea that the transformation of cities can be expressed through an iconic urban intervention is mainstream. To the point that cities like Madrid have repeatedly considered the idea of ​​building something similar to the Guggenheim: Look for an iconic building that attracts tourists and adds meaning to the city’s brand image.

But this is not enough. Of course, the “Guggenheim effect” forgets that nothing can be achieved through the museum alone: ​​the museum was only one leg of a process that forced the entire city around Nervión to rethink and radically transform itself on a physical level. social and cultural. The former without the latter is merely a decorative element.

Perhaps the best example of this is Granada. Although the Nasrid capital has the most visited monument in Spain, it has historically been unable to use it as a lever for urban renewal. At the end of the day, the vast majority of the millions of tourists who visit the Alhambra spend the night in hotel complexes on the Costa del Sol, consuming and spending money.

Benefits and problems of focusing on tourism. In recent years, the search for “tourist attractions” in attractive places such as Spain has become a constant (albeit misleading) one. After all, it is a relatively easy source of income to develop and the country already has a significant infrastructure.

Apparently it’s about managing to “divert” some of the national tourist flow and stimulate parts of the economy. But this has many ‘invisible’ consequences. Because, as seen on the Cantabrian coast these months, investing in tourism means developing a determined ‘industrial policy’ that will also affect the remaining productive sectors of society.

Spain is full of gems, landmarks, tourist attractions… But there is no great debate about where this will take us. And as we have seen in recent years, it is time to discuss this out loud.

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Image | James Narmer

*An earlier version of this article was published in November 2023.