Torremolinos is to decorate El Calvario and San Miguel with murals

The town hall is promoting a project, which has already secured funding and is now awaiting implementation, to turn the walls of nearby residential buildings in the El Calvario and San Miguel neighbourhoods into canvases for further large-scale artworks. The initiative aims to bring street art to the blank side walls of buildings in one of the town’s most traditional areas.

The project is designed for four buildings within a block bounded by Calles Río Trueba, Periodista Juan Villar and Joaquín Blake, comprising eight façades of multi-family residential buildings. Specifically, one mural is planned on Periodista Juan Villar; two in Plaza Río Aguasvivas and two more on Juan Quesada Rosado and Río Isuela, as well as another on Calle Joaquín Blake.

These changes will come about, as explained by the local authority, with the involvement of local residents. Last year, a meeting was held with the various neighbourhood communities to find out their views and ask for their cooperation so that, when the time comes, they can choose the themes for these projects. The aim is to “highlight the importance of their involvement in a project that will transform their neighbourhood” and to make them “an active part of it, acting as cultural stewards of the initiative and the neighbourhood”.

Two projects will be carried out. Firstly, building work and painting will be carried out on the selected properties; following a tender process, this work has been awarded to Avalon Proyectos, a company based in Benalmádena which submitted a bid of 74,929.37 euros for the contract. Secondly, the design of the motifs and the artistic execution have been commissioned from Jofre Oliveras, for 118,580 euros. This artist, who has an excellent track record, has left his mark on outdoor spaces in Aberdeen, Amman, Barcelona and Madrid.

Before reaching this stage of the project, a document was drawn up, establishing the technical foundations for the entire process. Following a public tender, the work was commissioned to architects María Isabel González Álvarez and Sergio Louzán Saavedra.

The report makes it clear that the preparatory phase before the murals are created is crucial, both to address defects affecting some of the walls as a result of their age, and to ensure that the finished work is properly integrated into occupied residential buildings, where features such as cables, air-conditioning units and clothes lines are present.

As for the timeframe, it is six months: four for the civil engineering work and two for the artistic aspect; so, to see the result of this proposal, we will have to wait until at least 2027.

To implement this initiative, the local authority has received a grant of almost 250,000 euros as part of the funding allocated to Andalucía’s tourist municipalities (Munitur) and which, in this case, is earmarked "for improving the quality of public spaces of tourist and cultural interest".

The new murals are among a number of other changes in El Calvario, such as the opening of the Isabel Manoja community centre, the restoration of the old market and the refurbishment of Plaza Vicente Aleixandre. Furthermore, the local council can now make use of the regional government’s former children’s care centre - currently closed - following the Andalusian regional government's approval of this handover procedure, in order to launch a facility that will revitalise the local area.

The demolition of the structure intended to house an extension to this building, which was never completed and has since become a source of health and safety hazards, is also planned. Almost 600,000 euros will be allocated to this work.