onextension

Discovering Cartagena

More Articles By Phillip Bruce www.raxomnium.com

Cartagena’s Old New Extension Area

Cartagena was originally a city on a peninsula, surrounded by sea at the front and a large lagoon at the back with a narrow neck of land to the north east.

Not surprisingly this, combined with a deep harbour, made the place easy to defend and the Carthaginians were the first to fully exploit the strategic potential. Remains of one of their walls can still be seen, dating back over 2,200 years.

This lagoon was a big problem as well as a military asset. For in its shallow waters mosquitoes and sickness lurked and outbreaks of disease regularly devastated the population.

At the end of the 19^th century the city administration decided that the lagoon should be filled in, both for public health reasons and to provide room to expand. The work took many decades to complete and the land is now covered by homes and commercial developments.

The busy Paseo de Alfonso XIII runs through what was once the lagoon, outside the city walls, and the suburban area to the north was all once under water.

The urban plan drawn up in 1897 was for a reclaimed area to be known as “the extension” or El Ensanche, and you can still hear this name used today.

An early problem to be faced was with marketing and convincing people crowded into the old city’s narrow streets to move out into the new town. An Ensanche development company was formed and this started promoting the project.

One of the first tactics was to build, between 1902 and 1904, a beautiful new headquarters, all style and elegance, on land reclaimed from the lagoon to demonstrate what a posh place Ensanche was to live. The architect was Tomás Rico Valarino

This building can still be seen, at the corner of Paseo de Alfonso XIII and Ángel Bruna. Today it is the headquarters of the Comunidad De Regantes, Campo de Cartagena, which is the body that overseas irrigation in the countryside around the city. The beautiful bay window, or mirador, is particularly impressive. Note how a modern building curves around the back of the old structure without in any way interfering with the visual line of the older building.

The fall of land from the neck of the former peninsula to the lagoon can be seen in the modern Capitanes Ripoll street.

end

BACK

Legal Notice - All script & pictures on this website are legally registered and the copyright property of Phillip Bruce. Any copying of material whatsoever from this site is strictly forbidden and legal action will follow unless prior permission is sought.

Gary Smith Fishing