A monumental space | The Adelantado of Segovia

Lived in Segovia all his life, until five years ago he changed the views of one of the most characteristic medieval castles in Spain for the Alcala gate. At just 24 years old, the architect Antonio Herrero You already know all the ins and outs of the main attraction of what is your reference city: the Aqueduct. “There is no other aqueduct of this size and with this degree of conservation in the world,” he says with pride.

‘A monumental space. The urban transformation around the Aqueduct of Segovia (1906-1970) ”. This is how the Final degree project (TFG) that has earned him an honorary degree and recognition by the Court of the School of Architecture from Madrid “to a hard work of six months”, and better still, the pride of his family.

Inspired by the historical photographs that he had seen of the Roman monument and the “so impressive” changes that its surroundings had, he did not hesitate to base the most important work of his university career in a city of which he admires “the traditional construction and how the light it is always reflected on the ocher tones ”, asserts Herrero with emotion. And it is that Segovia is surprising you at every step.

In his TFG he addresses the urban transformation that took place around the Aqueduct of Segovia. The most surprising conclusion he drew from his research is that “some of the guidelines that make up today’s urban space can already be seen in the first projects of the early twentieth century,” he says. The surrounding constructions have been changing, but the spectacular nature of this monument has not changed throughout its history.

With Nordic architecture as a reference and with Alvar Aalto As a mirror in which to look at himself, he dreams of developing one of his projects in Segovia. “One of the wishes of every architect is to be able to work in the place he knows best and what better city than this one.” However, now his training and evolution as an architect makes him see it with different eyes and understand it in a different way.

Currently, he is part of the HXR Arquitectos de Madrid studio, but acknowledges that “he misses the small scale of Segovia, the closeness of the treatment and the people.” It is to be expected; there are many possibilities that such a particular city offers.