IFC NEWS
INFORMATIONS
At our annual meeting in Namur, it was decided to present a motion of support from the IFC for the candidacy of the Raia fortresses in Portugal for inclusion on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The IFC Board was entrusted with drafting this motion and sending it to the Fortifications Interpretation Centre and to Almeida, who are supporting this entire candidacy in a network. You will find this letter of intend below, which we invite you to relay and adopt.
ALMEIDA – MARVAO – VALENCA DO MINHO CANDIDATE TO UNESCO
The International Fortress Council (IFC) hereby strongly supports the candidature of « Fortalezas Abaluatadas da Raia » in Portugal for UNESCO World Heritage status, which is being promoted by the municipalities of Almeida, Marvão and Valença do Minho.
"The Portuguese heritage of bastioned fortifications of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is considerable. Covering the internal borders with Spain as well as the coast or the Portuguese colonies, this fortified heritage includes fortifications that are still intact and very well preserved. In Portugal, after those of Evora and Elvas, already classified by UNESCO in 1986 and 2012, we can mention in particular, those of Almeida, Marvao, Valença do Minho. "
The proposal presented by Portugal is based on very solid historical and architectural documentation, the result of numerous studies coordinated over the years in the three cities by the teams of Professor Joao do Campos and his Centro de Estudos de Arquitetura Militar (Centre for Military Architecture Studies - CEAMA) which is located at the Santo António outer gate of the bastion in Almeida.
The importance of this classification is based on its heritage value and relevant as a testimony to the history of Europe: After the restoration of Portugal's independence between sixteen forty and sixteen sixty-eight (1640-1668), the biggest financial investment was concentrated in renovating the fortifications of towns and cities located near the border. In addition, it became necessary to hire foreign military engineers - mainly Dutch and French - who mastered the Modern Fortification. In 1647, the Military Fortification Class was formed to train Portuguese military engineers to continue the works and projects during all the seventh century.
The three candidate fortified cities are emblematic of the "Raia", a new fortified system designed to protect the century-old border of Portugal with Castile and which in its design and construction presents great analogies with the devices designed in France by Vauban such as the "pré carré" facing the Spanish border in Flanders.
It is very important that most of this Fortifications could underline the great interest of the possible international classification of the network of seventeenth-century fortifications on the border between Portugal and Spain. In a first phase, refers to Almeida, Marvão and Valença, but also on others that may be added to them (and potentially cross-border), once the nature of exceptional universal value is considered to be part of the network.
For all these reasons and noting in particular that the candidacy, collectively supported by local authorities and their elected representatives, has set itself the objective of building a network to which other cities and fortifications can be added, the IFC General Assembly voted unanimously in favour of supporting this candidacy from Portugal during the annual meeting in Namur (B) in 2024. The IFC Board will send this motion to all his 15 members to support this candidacy.
Andreas Kupka M.A. (Chairman), Marc Gayda (vice-chairman), Jeroen van der Werf (Gnl Secretary)
If your association agree this motion, you can send this letter to
CEAMA
Portas Exteriores de Santo António, 6350 Almeida
Telefone: 271 570 025 (Chamada para a rede fixa nacional)
Email: geral.ceama@cm-almeida.pt
With a copy to Museu Histórico Militar de Almeida, Divisão de Património Histórico, Cultural e Documental, Câmara Municipal de Almeida : juliana.longo@cm-almeida.pt
2025 projects in progress :
1 - Redesign of the website (engaged), study on the use of 3D for the multilingual dictionary in conjunction with the Menno von Coehoorn foundation, we decided to have a Project Group with our members of Deutsche Gesellschaft für Festungsforschung (Andreas Kupka), Menno von Coehoorn (Jeroen van der Werf), Simon Stevin (Luc Olyslager), Association Vauban (Marc Gayda) and Fortress Study Group (Dave Basset). The new site will be operational before the next Summer.
2 - Resilient Fortress -application
Ancient and modern fortifications were designed by the best available military engineers and designers. They were places of technological and logistic innovation, planned to be autonomous in case of siege. These places of defence and attack can educate us on solid building techniques, on economic use of materials, as well as on water management. From the 16th to the 20th century, the architecture of war includes massive amounts of earthworks, spread to wide areas, which today are ecological reserves much needed in the preservation of biodiversity. More than any other category of cultural heritage, the widespread fortified heritage unites architecture with landscape. Due to the structural strength of defensive constructions, many European fortifications once abandoned by the military have become protected monuments, places to live and to work and places to visit. They have a meaningful potential in European wellbeing, and they have an important role in teaching us our own history in its international context. Originally built to resist artillery, fortified heritage today faces climate change as its major threat. The negative effects of climate change are clearly detectable, where both masonry structures and cultural landscape have become fragile.
Erasmus + project named Resilient Fortress -application, presented by the Governing Body of Suomenlinna as lead partner with Stichting Monumentenbezit for the fortifications of Naarden (NL), Centre des monuments nationaux for the stronghold of Mont-Dauphin (F) and EFFORTS, European Federation of Fortified Sites (EU & B) with experts from France (Atelier d’Architecture Philippe Prost) and Italy (Studio Architettura Meneghelli) was chosen to be funded in June 2024.
The IFC participate to the Naarden Symposium on the 6th of may 2025 with the study group work about this project.
You can you can refer to the booklet we made about the project.
It is available for download at: https://monumentenbezit.nl/publicaties/publicatie-resilient-fortress/
3 - Continued welcoming of new members.
4- IFC participates in the revitalization of the Wellington Barrier project.
If you would like to contribute information from your association to the newsletter, the editors (marc.gayda@yahoo.fr ) would be very pleased. We are currently working on a renewal of the IFC website and we hope to go online for the beginning of the next year.
http://www.internationalfortresscouncil.org/
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