Title

Author(s)

Carlos Labarta Aizpún, José Antonio Alfaro Lera

Affiliation

School of Engineering and Architecture, University of Zaragoza

DOI

https://doi.org/10.65686/SWDP1181

Keywords

Caspe Castle, Modern Intervention, Heritage

PP

564-571

How to Cite

Aizpún, Carlos Labarta, José Antonio Alfaro Lera. “Intervention in the Compromise of Caspe Castle A Search of the Continuity.” In Proceedings of the International Conference on Adaptive Reuse. Volume 1, edited by Andrea Crudeli, Francesca Molle, and Emanuele Carrai, 564–571. Firenze: STH Press, 2026.

Abstract

The restoration intervention was carried out in a key site in the formation of the Kingdom of Spain as a modern state. In 1412, the election of Ferdinand I as the new King of Aragon was signed in the Castle of Caspe. This agreement between the parliaments of Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia is known as the Compromise of Caspe.
In 2011 the Government of Aragon commissioned the drafting of a project to adapt the area known as the Hall of the Compromise and the adjoining Tower to enable its visit and use as an assembly hall. Due to the practical disappearance of the original elements, the intervention could not be approached as “restoration”, or “mere reconstruction of what has been destroyed, according to the form it had or should have had”.
The project configures a stadkrone on the remains of the ancient mediaeval “acropolis” that crowned the historic city. A light box on mediaeval structures in which the concrete walls, sober and heavy, support the light glass box: the Hall of the Compromise. Former continues and merges with the existing stone and rammed earth walls. The second is delimited by a dense grid of wooden beams that extend vertically along the facade in strict seriation – a project leitmotiv – extended to the white concrete itself, which exhibits a pronounced vertical texture resulting from the use of wooden formwork.
The research explores the relationship of the modern project with history and the sequence of design decisions – constructive and aesthetic – in the formation of the architectural object in parallel to the will to build the place in which it is inserted, with the establishment of a new order based on the remains of the past.

Edited by
Andrea Crudeli
Francesca Molle
Emanuele Carrai

Publisher
STH Press, Firenze

ISBN Paperback – 9791281661141
ISBN Ebook – 9791281661158
DOI – https://doi.org/10.65686/SISY7263

Year
2026

Proceedings of
International Conference on Adaptive Reuse
hosted by The University of Pisa, Italy
15-19 September 2025, at the Gispoteca di Arte Antica dell’Università di Pisa.