ABSTRACT
In the convulse context of the late 1970s a derelict Alameda de Hércules presented itself as a void, but just as much as a space available for re-territorialisation. This chapter portrays the different logics that contended for the space up until 2008. They came from the institution, from speculative strategies, from disciplinary bodies that embraced new ideas of urban space and heritage, and from segments of the population which profited from a fluid socio-political moment to organically appropriate it. These logics supported specific urban practices which were articulated in bricolages and prompted processes of ritualisation which sought to establish different understanding of this space. But the importance of this moment rather resides in the re-construction of a memory that had been largely obliterated during the Francoist period. The concept of the Alameda was thus reshaped by these collectives, in a process of what I call fetishisation , by virtue of which the space transcended its own individuality in order to become the symbol of a new spatial paradigm. It was not the first time that the Alameda underwent a similar transformation; in chapter 4 , I relate how the enlightened made of it the paradigm of a new urban agenda, at the same time as they closed it down for meaning.
