It constitutes the most important work of civil architecture of the Enlightenment century in the city.
The building was emptied and demolished, with the exception of its façade, for speculative purposes by the real estate group Salsa Patrimonio, causing irrecoverable damage to the architectural heritage of the historic center and decreeing the state of ruin of the property. The rehabilitation works to convert it into a hotel and recover its archaeological remains began in May 2017 and had a construction period of three years.
History
It was built in 1789 by Félix Solesio in a widening of Granada street in front of the Santiago Apóstol church , near the Plaza de la Merced . The project only refers to a master builder , but the style of the building means that it has been attributed to José Martín de Aldehuela .
Félix Solesio, a Genoese nobleman from Finale Ligure who settled in the province of Málaga with a royal contract to install the Real Fábrica de Naipes in Macharaviaya and a paper factory in Batán de San Carlos (which is why he is considered the founder of the Benalmaden nucleus of Arroyo de la Miel ), he ordered the construction of this palace on a bend in the street after asking the Cabildo for permission to widen it so that carriages could go around where there used to be small houses.
The coat of arms of the Solesio family can be found carved in limestone on the chamfer of the corner of the palace with the narrowing of the street. The building was used to store the paper made in Arroyo de la Miel and the cards already made in Macharaviaya ready to be transported from the port of Malaga to the New World . The American playing card trade was Solesio's monopoly.
In 1806 , after the expropriation of the building, it was handed over to José Mariano del Llano and Catalina Archez, widow of Bernardo Carrillo. A 1939 brochure tells us that the building was used as a school for the College for Ladies entitled La Minerva .
The wrong relationship with the Gálvez family
It has been mistakenly thought that the ownership of the property passed to the Gálvez de Macharaviaya family and even today it is also known as the Palace of the Gálvez . Narciso Díaz de Escovar wrote in an article that when the Marquis of Sonora went to Málaga he stayed at the Solesio Palace, an unlikely thing given that José de Gálvez died in 1787 , two years before construction of the building began. Photographs from the Temboury Archive from 1946 show the building without the Gálvez shield that today finishes off the cover. The palace does not appear among the places visited on the occasion of the twinning between the cities of Malaga and Mobilein 1965 , which honors the ties drawn by Bernardo de Gálvez between the cities of both continents. It seems probable that the coat of arms comes from the demolished palace of the Gálvez de Macharaviaya family, then owned by the Countess of Berlanga de Duero and could have been donated to be installed in this building when the relationship between this family and the street property was considered. Grenade.
Architectural features
It is a three-story building whose stone façade presents different decorative elements such as boxed pilasters, modillions, entablature, garland friezes and rosettes. Inside, its hall stood out with a marble doorway that gave way to the stairs made up of two Tuscan columns topped by vases and entablature forming curved pediments that ended in a curved attic, from which palm leaves protruded. On its attic is the coat of arms of the Gálvez family, added later after a historical error.
Current situation and state of ruin
After being acquired by the Larios Sugar Society to convert it into a five-star hotel, its interior was demolished in 2006 (only the patio columns were rescued, having lost the staircase among many other elements) under the pretext of the poor conditions it was in. The building. The project drafted by Salvador Moreno Peralta also encountered the appearance in the subsoil of important Roman archaeological remains. This delayed the start of the works since the Junta de Andalucía demanded its conservation, thus altering the project presented by Moreno Peralta who refused to relocate the hotel kitchens elsewhere.
In 2015, part of the scaffolding that hid it was removed, to give a better appearance to the tourist Granada street . This situation is criticized from various sectors, alleging that Malaga has lost one of the best examples of civil architecture that it had with the disappearance of a large part of the elements that made up the space.
In January 2016, negotiations were established to be acquired by the real estate investment group Activum SG. with an investment of eight million euros, to build a superior four-star hotel. The economic viability of this group has become clear, due to its potential to be able to acquire high-value real estate in Spain in the previous year, such as the Fuencarral Market , 17And this guarantee is the key circumstance to be able to stop the forced sale procedure opened by the Urban Planning Management months ago, which began an expropriation process to put the plot up for public auction, given the repeated breaches of Salsa Inmobiliaria to recover the building. Activum SG will have to start the works in a period of less than six months signed by contract.
In August 2016, the Ministry of Culture of the Junta de Andalucía issued an unfavorable report on the construction project of a hotel in the remains of the palace due to the roof structure. Due to this fact, the company sent three different proposals for roofing than those of the original project.
In October 2016, a judicial resolution ruled that the aforementioned Larios Sugar Society (currently called Salsa Patrimonio) and previous owner of the property intentionally caused the ruin of the property, demolishing its structure and beams. The building, today practically demolished, with the exception of its façade and the conservation of some interior walls, was emptied and demolished without cause, except for speculation, according to a report submitted to the trial by the Urban Planning Department of Málaga. which caused that the state of ruin of the property had to be decreed by the city council. This negligence, by Salsa Inmobiliaria, 20It has caused for years the degradation of a block located in a very sensitive area of ??the historic center of Malaga and a very valuable loss of the city's cultural heritage, difficult to recover due to the destructive treatment of all its ornamental elements except the columns. In addition, in said resolution it was ruled in favor of the Durán Óptica, which occupied one of the commercial premises of the palace and which was relocated until the reconstruction works were completed, which were never carried out. Salsa Patrimonio was sentenced to compensate the optician with an amount greater than €70,000.
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