THE MILL OF SAN ANDRES. VILLAVA |
Thursday 05 Jan 2012
|
The mill of San Andres, after its refurbishment, hosts an Environmental Interpretation and Education centre in the District Riverside Park. It is a ludic space, a place to gather orientated to the environmental sensitizing and education.
It offers different exhibition spaces, workshops and guided tours. It is also in the way of the Route of the pilgrimage to Santiago.
The District Riverside Park, on the banks of the Rivers Arga, Ultzama and Elorz, is a 22-km green corridor which runs northeast-northwest through the Basin of Pamplona.
A park set around the water and intended for leisure, sport, education and socializing, integrates urban planning and ecology, returning the watercourses and riverbanks to the local population.
The mill of San Andrés was built jointly by the residents of Villava and Huarte as a flour mill in 1541. Centuries later, in 1897, it was converted into a flour factory and finally, a power station, until it was abandoned in 1987.
In 1896 the mill was adapted to generate electricity. Since then the water of the Arga River has moved the turbine. After the refurbishment, this turbine, named "Francis", has been used for the building to supply itself.
The center exhibits part of the machinery of the ancient flour mill which incorporates the Austro-Hungarian system, patented in 1870.
Before the refurbishment the building was totally ruined so the roof and some of the wooden floors had to be demolished and replaced.
The building now holds an exhibition space, a projection room, toilets, an elevator and a bar-cafeteria in the ground floor opened to the outdoors. As sometimes this floor can get flooded because of the rise of the river, the bar and its installations are in an elevating platform. The rest of the installations would not be affected by the floods as they are in a higher floor.
The building was finished in May 2011.
Chocarro y Urmeneta S.L.P. Arquitectos