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date: 17/05/2012 latest update: 15/05/2012
20th century. M. Lorente's restoration project
Picture on the left: Photograph taken in 1962, prior to the uncovering of the Santa Ana entranceway. The buttress attached to the southern crossing, built by the architect Saracibar in 1856, is clearly visible. (Vitoria/Gasteiz Municipal Archives. Author: S. Arina. Ref.: LFM-336-3(6).Picture on the right: Photograph taken in 1963, after the elimination of half of the 1856 buttress and the uncovering of the Santa Ana entranceway, under the direction of the architect Lorente Junquera. (Vitoria/Gasteiz Municipal Archives. Author: S. Arina. Ref.: LFM-397-4(3)).
Picture on the left: Window in the north crossing, opened by M. Lorente during the 1960s.Picture on the right: Structure built to dismantle the so-called 'archways of fear' (support arches) from the central nave.
The last restoration works prior to the current project were those carried out by the architect Manuel Lorente during the 1960s, which radically changed the cathedral's general appearance but contributed little to solving the building's underlying structural problem.
The criteria behind the project were mainly aesthetic, and were an attempt to 'return' the building to its 'pure' gothic state, despite the fact that such a state had never really existed.One indication of the purely stylistic and aesthetic motivations behind the restoration works is the fact that most of the budget was spent on eliminating wall overlays, an intervention which, far from resolving the building's structural problems, aggravated them even further. For example, the elimination of more than half of the buttress in the southern crossing (built one century beforehand) reinitiated the movement of the left-hand crossing towards the west.
The main activities carried out during this period (1960-1967) were:
• Elimination of support arches.
• Elimination of historical plasterwork.
• Opening up of new windows
• Uncovering of the Santa Ana entranceway.
