Exhibitions, cabaret, food, music and regattas to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Port of Santander
The president and vice president of the port and industry counselor have presented today at the Palacete del Embarcadero both the activities that will take place along the waterfront and the logo that will represent this event.
Martin: "we have in hand an eclectic program, suitable for all audiences, with which we intend that citizens enjoy and identify with its port as a generator of wealth and prosperity".
Santander 11-02-22. The president of the Port Authority, Francisco Martin, and the Minister of Industry and Vice President of the port, Javier Marcano, presented today at the Palacete del Embarcadero both the program of activities that will take place along the waterfront between May and November and the logo that has been created to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the birth of the port of Santander.
For Martin this logo, whose main element is the Stone Crane, one of the assets of the port "older and also more loved and valued" by the people of Santander, represents, "on the one hand, the need to look back to the past of the institution, and on the other, with the inclusion of several colorful and modern elements, to project the entity into the future", something in which "we are immersed" with a new configuration of the port "supported by an ambitious investment plan".
For his part, Marcano stressed that the Crane "designed by Sheldon and Gertzden in 1896" is an "emblematic" construction and "totally linked to the history of the port" so "no one better than her" to symbolize the port values. The vice-president of the port has highlighted that the history of this crane is representative of the continuous modernization of the port infrastructures since "it evolved according to the needs of each period".
As for the program, which has the support of the Government of Cantabria, Martin has presented an "eclectic" collection of activities, "suitable for all audiences", with which "we intend that citizens enjoy and identify with their port in such a special year".
In this sense, the counselor recalled that precisely the Board of Works of the Port was born "thanks to the support of a large number of neighbors, in addition to the institutions, for the promotion of works to improve the port, its implementation and administration", so that this commemoration also tries to be the citizens who continue to identify the port as "an element of its own, generating wealth and prosperity, as in 1872". Marcano has thus referred to the good progress of the port that "is not only adapting its infrastructure to the new industrial needs but is obtaining a continuous record traffic", a result that should "arouse the pride of all Cantabrians" since it is the engine of the economy of the region.
Thus, the head of the APS has presented a program that includes exhibitions "of great quality" that will be distributed in various port scenarios such as the Palacete del Embarcadero, the promenade, the Maritime Station or the Naos Room "recovered especially for the commemoration of this 150th anniversary". Among the exhibitions include some like:
- Historical Photography Puerto Santander. José Antonio Torcida Collection
The exhibition offers a journey through the history of the Port of Santander since 1861 showing, among other photographic documents little known, stereoscopic views of the port made by the photographer Casimiro Iborra, unpublished until now. Chronologically, the exhibition ends with an album of the Second Naval Week held in 1968.
- Aerial Photography of the Port of Santander
The aim is to show through aerial images, the evolution of the facilities of the Port of Santander from the seventies to the present day, chronologically continuing the exhibition that is simultaneously presented inside the Palacete del Embarcadero.
- Javier Mariscal
The Palacete del Embarcadero will host a special exhibition of the prestigious designer Javier Mariscal.
- Constructions on the Santander Seafront
Documentary review (plans, photographs...) of the constructions of all kinds, existing and missing, made in the last 150 years in the maritime strip.
- Looking at the Port
This project consists of three elements: the publication of an illustrated book, a series of creative workshops, and a didactic-divulgative exhibition, focused on awakening the interest of children in the Port of Santander, its configuration, its importance and its relationship with the city itself.
- Port Models
The hall of the Maritime Station will house a selection of models of different areas of the Port of Santander (Maritime Station, Dry Dock, Waterfront, etc.) that the Port Authority has made over the past 35 years and are being restored for the occasion.
- The Santander Port Authority Art Collection
The port has an interesting artistic heritage made up of paintings, drawings, sculptures, photographs, installations and engravings, works by artists who work locally, nationally and internationally.
Given the size of some of the main works in the collection, this exhibition can be visited in the Naos Room.
In addition, to celebrate this 150th anniversary, the APS is organizing a Show Hall at the Maritime Station, which will include various activities such as cabaret, theater and music, including a space for Cantabrian talent. Other actions are also planned, such as cinema, several concerts, a crossing of the Bay, a regatta, 3D installations or several performances.
Part of the celebration events will also coincide with the visit of the Spanish Navy Training Ship Juan Sebastián de Elcano, which will remain docked in the port of Santander between June 20 and 24.
History of the port's constitution
The year 2022 marks the anniversary of two fundamental institutions for understanding the contemporary development of the Port of Santander and the dynamics of the territories in which it operates: the regional capital, the region of the Bay, Cantabria and even the Spanish State.
On Friday, May 10, 1872, the Gaceta de Madrid, the official organ of expression and legislative and regulatory dissemination of the Government, published a Decree of the Ministry of Development signed by Francisco Romero Robledo, its holder during the reign of Amadeo I, and the monarch himself, by which, at the request of the City Council of Santander, supported by the Provincial Council, the Board of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce and a large number of neighbors, authorized the creation of a special Board, which is called the Board of the Works of the port, aimed at promoting the promotion of works to improve the port, its implementation and administration; specifying the attributions granted to it for the fulfillment of its purposes.
On Tuesday, May 10, 2022 will be, therefore, 150 years of the enactment of the creation of the successor figure of the Royal Consulate of Sea and Land of Santander and the Board of Trade as an administrative instrument of the port, which acted as manager of this for nearly a century; institution that relieved in these tasks, with different prerogatives and without continuity, the Board of the Port of Santander in 1968 and the Port Authority of Santander in 1992.
The end of 2022 will also mark the 30th anniversary of the entry into operation of the Port Authority of Santander as a result of the publication in the Official State Gazette of November 24, 1992 of the State Ports and Merchant Marine Law, an instrument with which the Central Administration promoted the most recent reform and modernization of the state-owned port system.
Stone Crane
The Stone Crane, owned by the Port Authority of Santander, is located on the Paseo Marítimo, in the Muelle de Maura, next to the Pereda Gardens, within the port public domain, in a pedestrianized space without road traffic, and is included in the Catalogue of Ethnographic Elements of the P.G.O.U. of Santander, with the following description:
"30-ton crane designed by Sheldon and Gertzden in 1896. The foundation consists of a hydraulic concrete and masonry pillar of six meters by six meters of horizontal section and fourteen meters high up to the dock floor. On top of this pillar rests another narrower masonry body with iron corbels. This emblematic construction so closely linked to the history of the port and the memory of the people of Santander is preserved as a monument".
This crane was inaugurated in 1900, with the function of carrying out large-scale loading and unloading, which would otherwise have to be done by hand. Its original operation was steam-powered, until it was electrified at the end of the 1920s, which greatly expedited its work by eliminating its dependence on coal. It was active for nearly 80 years. It was rehabilitated in 1990, and has subsequently remained one of the most beloved monuments of the city of Santander.
In February 2016, part of the crane's counterweight came off, due to the sudden collapse of one of the supporting beams. That same year, the monument was urgently restored, recovering the original set, without suffering any alteration in its morphology.