Stopover on the Way of St. James
Restoration of a Hermitage in Aragon by Sebastián Arquitectos
© Iñaki Bergera
Refurbishment of the San Juan de Ruesta Hermitage is the latest project by Sebastián Arquitectos. The architects consolidated the building with care, in the process making it once again a resting place for people on the pilgrimage. Ruesta, a village on the St. James Way in Aragon, northern Spain, saw flooding in the 1960s, after which a large number of its buildings fell into disrepair.
© Iñaki Bergera
A few years ago, the local authorities eventually commissioned Sergio Sebastián Franco and his team to draw up a master plan to breathe new life into the historic site at Yesa reservoir.
One of the first buildings to be restored in this connection was the San Juan de Ruesta Hermitage set among oaks and holm oaks. Once an inviting spot for pilgrims to rest in the shade on their way to Santiago de Compostela, years of neglect had left it in a ruinous state.
© Iñaki Bergera
The Spanish architects based their design on the remnants of the single-nave hall building, its pitched roof and the eastward-facing apse. They restored the crumbling brickwork as well as they could, reconstructed the remaining parts and re-establishing the building’s original volume. While the apse was preserved in its entirety, the facades of the main nave now consist of a combination of old and new.
© Iñaki Bergera
© Iñaki Bergera
The irregular foundation walls have been rounded off with smooth, sand-coloured ashlars, aligned horizontally to accord with the rhythm of the existing structure and punctuated with regularly-spaced small holes. The dim light that these openings modelled on mediaeval arrowslits let into the interior is to create a special atmosphere in the pilgrimage site.
© Iñaki Bergera
The roof, completely re-created using light-coloured slabs, rounds off the volume in coherence with the rest of the building. The planners reused old stones from the hermitage by lining them up at regular intervals in the area around the building, creating an almost artistic memorial site that encourages pilgrims to pause, think back to the past and also pray on their way to Santiago de Compostela.
Read more in Detail 1/2.2023 and in our databank Detail Inspiration.
Architecture: Sebastián Arquitectos
Client: Confederación Hidrográfica del Ebro, UTE Yesa
Location: HWXC+27 Ruesta (ES)
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