Social Democracy and Regionalism at the Roman Theatre of Sagunt

Manuel López Segura, a Ph.D. candidate in Architecture and Urban Planning at Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) discusses the restoration project of the Roman Theatre of Sagunt.

With the advent of democracy and the quasi-federalization of Spain during the 1980s, regions assumed unprecedented powers over heritage policy. In the Valencian Community, an area with a distinctive culture and language, nationalist claims tainted debates on preservation. These phenomena are well exemplified by the restoration project for the Roman theatre of Sagunt (ca. 50 AD), which the Valencian autonomous government commissioned in 1984.

The discussion will center on that restoration in the light of the political tensions that surrounded the government’s social-democratic agenda, which aimed at the reconstruction of an egalitarian public realm and of a long-repressed regional identity.