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| Anton van der Wyngaerde's rendering of Barcelona in 1563 viewed from Montjuic. The Drassanes is visible in the centre of this image just to the left of the tower in the foreground |
Writing and studying history is a
matter of sifting through often incomplete data and interpreting it
to arrive at a conclusion. Sometimes new evidence, dug out from
either archives or from archeological excavations, comes to light and
what was once dogma must be rethought and reinterpreted. Recently a
similar process has happened with Barcelona's Drassanes Reials, or
the Royal Shipyards. The building, located at the bottom of Las
Ramblas near the Columbus monument and the harbour, is home to the
Maritime Museum. For decades history books and tourist guides have
touted the Drassanes as one of Europe's foremost examples of
industrial Gothic architecture but recent archeological and archival
investigations have forced a reevaluation of the building and its
site. Instead of being a Gothic structure from the 13th
century most of the existing building is now considered to have been
built a century and a half later “in the Gothic style.” It may
be disappointing that the city has “lost” a Gothic monument but
we now know a lot more about the building, the site, and about
Barcelona's history. In addition, the same archeological excavations have shed
more light on the city's history as a Roman colony. The excavations,
begun in 2010 and lasting to 2012, were followed by a programme of
building renovation including architectural and engineering
restorative work.
The Drassanes (drassana is the Catalan
for shipyard) was a place to build, repair and store ships of the
Crown of Aragon's navy. Archival evidence suggests there was a
shipyard—perhaps no more than an open area on the beach—on the
present site prior to the 13th century but it was not
until late in the reign of Pere el Gran (Peter the Great) between
1282 and 1285 that the medieval structure was built. That building
consisted of a series of long covered bays under which ships could be
assembled or repaired. The shipyard was built just to the west and
outside the city walls that roughly followed the line of the
present-day Las Ramblas. The shipyard buildings were built on the
beach so that ships could de directly launched or recovered. The
ships of the King's fleet had to be stored ashore during the winters
because Barcelona lacked a harbour with all-round protection. As the
Catalan-Argonese fleet grew the shipyard was expanded during the 14th
and early 15th centuries. During this time the city walls
were also expanded so as to encompass the Drassanes.
Most of the existing structure, that
which we see today, dates from the late 16th and early
17th centuries. Although Barcelona lacked a proper harbour
a spit of land, where the Barceloneta neighbourhood is today located, provided ships
with a measure of protection from north winds. Unfortunately, this
also led to erosion of the beach in front of the Drassanes and as a
result the Medieval structure was demolished and a new one built
partly on the same location but further inland. The recent
archeological excavations have revealed the foundations of the piers
of the older structure. The new Drassanes was also built in the
Gothic style; this is what had confused historians, a building in the
Gothic style but built at a later date. Presumably the original
structure was found to be functional and when the “new” Drassanes
was built the same architectural style was used. This new evidence
has explained some discrepancies that arose from the study of old
documents. For example, a well-known 1563 image of Barcelona by Anton
van der Wyngaerde's had caused doubts about the accuracy of the
Drassanes as depicted. But research and excavations have shown that
Wyngaerde's image actually depicts the older building and not the
present-day structure.
The building of a larger Drassanes also implied advances in the
art of ship building that occurred between the 13th and
15th centuries. By the 15th century ships were
much bigger. Among the ships built in the Drassanes was the Real
which served as Don Juan of Austria's flagship at the pivotal battle
of Lepanto in 1571 between Islam and Christianity. At the time the
Real was largest galley in the world. In the 1970s the
Maritime Museum built a full-size replica of the ship and it occupies
one of the Drassanes' central naves, and is the museum's showcase
exhibit. The size of the Real replica made it impractical to
remove during the archeological and restoration work. During the
recent excavations the remainder of the museum's permanent exhibit
were removed to temporary storage.
The archeological excavations under the
Drassanes have also revealed something about the Barcelona of two
millennium ago, revealing the presence of a large Roman necropolis.
The graves of more than one hundred individuals dating from the 1st
and 6th centuries provide another layer of evidence to
Barcelona's history. While the discovery of the graves does not add
to the building's history, it does tell us something about the
Barcelona waterfront at the time of the Roman empire. Amongst the
excavations were found the remains of a mausoleum which will be
visible to the public through a glass floor.
One important conclusion taken from the
finding of the graves is that the land that the Drassanes sits on was
obviously stable, dry and likely some distance from the shore during
the Roman era. The dead would not have been buried on an unstable
beach. Another conclusion that can be made is that there was likely a
road parallel to the shoreline given that Roman cemeteries often
lined the roads leading to the gates of the city walls. So even
during the time of the Romans the site of the future Drassanes was
very likely near one of the gates into Barcino, as the city as known
under the Romans. An example of this custom, of graves lining a
roadway, are the Roman graves visible in the Plaça de la villa de
Madrid in the Barri Gotic. We know that from the time of the medieval
city that there was a gate through the city walls adjacent to the
shipyard.
Over the centuries the Drassanes has
served as a military barracks, an arsenal, as a foundry for the
fabrication of munitions, and as part of the perimeter wall of
the city's defences. The building was transferred to the Generalitat
(the Catalan government) in 1936 with the intent of establishing a marine museum but the Civil
War interfered with these plans. During the Civil War the Drassanes served
as an arsenal for the Republican army and it was not until 1941 that
the Maritime Museum finally opened its doors. As part of the recent
renovations the museum's facilities have been upgraded and added to.
A new insulated roofing system and a new heating and ventilation
systems will aid in the preservation of the museum's collection. The
upgrading includes a new library and some classroom spaces. While
most of the Drassanes was reopened to the public in early 2013, and
temporary exhibitions were held during the renovations, the Museum’s
permanent exhibits will be back on display late in 2014.
This article originally appeared in the February 2014 issue of Barcelona Metropolitan magazine.
