Malaga's Roman theatre: one company bids for contract to improve visitor experience

The project to expand the public viewing area will give access to the remains of the Roman baths and the fish fermenting pools under Calle Alcazabilla

Regina Sotorrío

Friday, 2 August 2024, 14:36

The Roman theatre in Malaga is having another go at getting its expansion project off the ground. Almost a year after the tender for the extension of the visitor area was declared void, one company is bidding for the contract in a second call for tenders from the Junta de Andalucía. Interpunt Blue Big, a renovation company based in Malaga, was the only firm to bid for the new tender to make the history of the monument more accessible to the public, with a budget of 87,341.85 euros - some 6,000 euros under the tender limit - an offer that was positively received by the contracting committee.

In this second attempt, the intervention will be fully financed by the Junta de Andalucía. After the 2023 call for tenders was unsuccessful due to a formality in the only bid submitted on that occasion from a different contractor (Arathea SLL), this second tender was not eligible for Feder funding (European Regional Development Fund).

Feder funds were originally going to co-finance 80% of the cost of the work with the Junta, but they ran out of time to be eligible for these funds again. Once the contract is awarded, Interpunt BB has six months to complete the work.

This is a long-awaited project, the first major one at the Roman theatre in more than a decade. The aim of the project is to enhance the value of the remains recovered at the site by making them visible to the public. These remains include some pools for the manufacture of garum, the fermented fish sauce-cum-paste so coveted by the Romans, part of a large factory that was developed in this area once the theatre had fallen into disuse. Some of these pools are now visible from the glass pyramid in the centre of Calle Alcazabilla. In addition, the remains of 'opus spicatum' (literally 'spiked paving', similar to a herringbone pattern) from the Roman baths that pre-date construction of the theatre have also been discovered in the area.

Three moments in a long history

In this way, the work will cover three different, but key moments in the theatre's history, plus the before and after it became the cultural centre of attraction in Roman Malaga: its time as a terma, as a stage and as an industrial salting area. The work will be carried out in the area around the 'scena' (stage) and the 'aditus sur' (south entrance), as well as in the area above and to the side of the existing garum pools under Calle Alcazabilla. Given the fragility of the ground under this pedestrian walkway, the project envisages that the remains found can be viewed from a platform located at a higher level, which will connect with the existing walkways that head towards the exit to the site.

Two different spaces are thus envisaged: an area from which the archaeological remains will be viewed (viewpoint area) and walkways that will run along the route from the 'scena' to the exit of the enclosure that will follow the same criteria as the existing wooden walkways. On one side of the walkway, a kind of viewing platform will be created from which the garum basins can be viewed without causing any damage to the site.

In the area of the 'aditus sur', work will also be carried out to solve the current problem caused by the passage of visitors accessing the entrance to the Alcazaba (too much footfall). For this purpose, a wooden-slatted walkway has been designed, supported on the ground by telescopic legs that will have neoprene and synthetic rubber blocks where they meet the paved pathway in such a way that the original paving will be protected.

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