The best bricklayers in the whole of Spain are from Malaga

Malaga can proudly boast about its talented bricklayers after the local pairing made up of Javier Vargas and his assistant Manuel Fuentes won the 57th annual national bricklaying competition of the Peña El Palustre contest, held every year in the Malaga neighbourhood of El Palo.

A total of 30 pairs of bricklayers from all over Spain competed in this year's contest, held on Sunday 22 September and which brings together numerous bricklayers, as well as sector representatives, architects and construction company managers.

The winners, whose exceptional level of bricklaying was judged by a panel of experts, were awarded 6,000 euros. The second-placed pair of José Antonio Guerrero Flores and his assistant Manuel Sierra from Bienvenida (Badajoz) won 2,500 euros.

Third place (with a prize of 1,500 euros) went to the pair made up of Jacobo Cerón and Yurii Kokodynskyi, from the municipality of Villanueva del Rosario in Malaga and fourth place went to José María del Pozo Galán and Miguel Ángel López Menchero, from Fuenlabrada (Madrid), with a prize of 1,000 euros. In addition to Malaga and most of the Andalusian provinces (Seville, Granada, Cordoba and Jaén), the competing teams came from other parts of the country such as Gerona, Madrid and Cáceres.

Architect Demófilo Peláez was the president of the jury and the person in charge of coming up with the structure the bricklaying teams needed to execute in the contest. "Finding a new design every year is a real complication, and therefore something was proposed that has not been in the competition since 1999, 25 years ago, and it was a design by my father," Peláez said.

"It is a very special structure because it has to be worked in the air, it has only a few threads that do not serve as a support, but only as a guide. It is very complex because it requires one structure to meet the other at a single point and without any kind of plaster, and the setting out is also difficult."

"What is valued is not time as an element of quality, but accuracy in the layout and perfection in the finish," the architect added. "We are looking for excellence, this is art, to give value to traditional craftsmanship, with techniques that are no longer in use." In accordance with its mathematical and geometrical definition, the exercise was entitled in Spanish, 'a hueso', which in slang means that the structures touch at a point without plaster, brick by brick, "which is what requires absolute precision".

The participants received the plans of the structure first thing in the morning, as well as all the materials necessary to execute it. The jury considered the perfection of the finishing touches, the accuracy of the layout in plan and elevation, and, in the event of a tie, the winner would be the one with the shortest completion time.

The origin of the competition dates back to 1967, when the first members of the Peña El Palustre began to compete casually among themselves to compare their skills as bricklayers. Since then, it has grown to become known in the world of construction nationally. "The competition was born out of our love and enthusiasm for masonry," said the co-founder of the competition Manuel Peláez Santiago. "If masonry work is dying, let this be a little push to raise the knowledge of professionals," he added. The event is organised by the Peña El Palustre, with the support of Malaga city council and the provincial authority.