Patrimonio Industrial Portuario: El Astillero de Matagorda.

Resumen

On the grounds of the Navantia-Puerto Real shipyard (Cádiz), we find the Historic Area of the Matagorda Factory, both origin and legacy of an industrial landscape of great  heritage value. It is the result of the evolution process of both naval construction techniques and of the business principIes which set the objectives of the factory during each of the cycles of its history. It has a museum and an industrial site which have been conserved practically intacl since their construction over 100 years ago. Since its origin, with the construction of the Carenas Dike in 1872, the factory has undergone constant transformations promoted by the consecutive owners of the plant: slipways, infrastructures, piers and workshops. Its activity decreased in 1969 - with the creation of the company Astilleros Españoles S.A.- and it closed eight years later. A working city was created within the production site, and this now constitutes an interesting urban legacy which is considered to be fossilised. On the one hand, elements resulting from industrial paternalism of the late XIXth century are conserved : the neighbourhood, the apprentice school, the home, the neo Romanic chape!, canteens, offices, warehouses ... And on the other, we find elements from the subsequent adaptation in 1960, urban design and the residential typo-logy - the name of the streets were A and B, humanised thanks to the character of its inhabitants- . Arenewed sensitivity towards industrial heritage has allowed us to recover, value and protect a site which reflects the development -over more than a century -of the ways of life, work and social relations of a community for which this activity was, for years, a sole work reference. Efforts are now concentrated on the spreading and creation of a management system suited to the needs of a modern cultural centre, which facilitates access of citizens to heritage site that conserves the history of us all.