The La Laguna City Council has launched a pilot heritage lighting project on San Agustín Street, which will include the installation of luminaires with gobos to project allegorical images. The initiative, which begins with a participatory process on July 30, aims to improve the night-time visibility of heritage and move towards more sustainable lighting.
La Laguna has begun drafting a pilot heritage lighting project on San Agustín Street, one of the most emblematic roads in the World Heritage City and considered on several occasions as one of the ten most beautiful streets in Spain. The action, integrated into the Lighting block of the World Heritage Site Management Plan, includes the experimental installation of new luminaires with gobos, a contemporary lighting system designed for historical environments that projects allegorical images linked to the architecture, history, and heritage of La Laguna.
The project will be accompanied by a broad and structured participatory process that will start on July 30. This process will allow citizens to decide on the content to be projected, as well as to learn in detail about the objectives of an intervention aimed at improving the night-time visibility of heritage, enhancing security, and moving towards a more sustainable and environmentally respectful lighting model.
The mayor of La Laguna, Luis Yeray Gutiérrez, has highlighted that this pilot project represents “an important step in modernising our urban lighting, always with the utmost respect for heritage and with citizens at the centre of the process.” Gutiérrez emphasised that the initiative is conceived as a controlled and participatory experience, which will allow for the evaluation of its impact before any future decisions.
“La Laguna is a vibrant city, proud of its history and identity. This project will allow us to explore new ways of telling that story at night, with light, in an innovative and respectful manner. And we will do this by listening to the citizens, explaining each step, and promoting consensus,” the mayor added.
For his part, the councillor for Territorial Planning and Cultural Heritage, Adolfo Cordobés, pointed out that the project responds to contemporary heritage management criteria established by UNESCO and that the Management Plan in which this initiative is embedded marks “a profound change in the way we understand our heritage, incorporating factors such as mobility, sustainability, participation, and lighting as inseparable elements of the urban experience.”
“This pilot will allow us to see how lighting can enhance the perception of the urban ensemble and, at the same time, use light as a tool for heritage language that allows us to disseminate our history. One of the most important elements of the proposal is participation, and precisely, the citizens will be part of those who decide what is projected, from historical scenes to symbols, characters, or stories that are part of the more than five centuries of the city's life,” the councillor assessed.
To this end, the Urban Planning Management of the La Laguna City Council has planned a wide range of participatory actions, including a specific citizen workshop and various physical and virtual proposals, which will be announced soon.
The pilot project on San Agustín Street is conceived as an initial experience that will allow for the evaluation of citizen acceptance, heritage impact, and technical effectiveness of the solution before considering its consolidation or possible extension to other streets in the historic ensemble. Any future decision will depend on the results of the participatory process and the corresponding technical and heritage evaluations.
The initiative is part of the drafting of the first Management Plan for the World Heritage Site of La Laguna, recently launched, which will constitute the new roadmap for the sustainable planning and management of the historic ensemble over the coming years. The Management Plan is articulated in a tender divided into lots awarded to four specialized teams, whose work will allow for a comprehensive approach to the main areas that determine the conservation and urban life of the historic ensemble.
The Strategic and Operational Plan, awarded to the UTE Fundación Ecológica Urbana y Territorial & Cabrera Febles Arquitectos, will define the main lines of protection for the asset, incorporating a documented management system to measure the quality of life of the resident population and ensure the preservation of La Laguna's Outstanding Universal Value. The Mobility and Design of Free Spaces Plan, led by the UTE Buchanan-Trion, will tackle the challenge of reconciling accessibility, habitability, and sustainability with the historical identity of the urban space.
The development of this pilot project and the Lighting Plan for the historic city has been awarded to the company Intervento for €135,646.91, based on the need to design a lighting system capable of integrating public lighting, ambient lighting, and artistic projections into a single solution, avoiding the accumulation of elements and ensuring minimal visual intrusion in a high-value heritage environment.
Furthermore, the Participation and Communication Plan, contracted to Urbanfix, will be developed transversally throughout the Management Plan and will ensure that citizens effectively influence the definition of the model. The drafting of these four plans represents a total investment of €595,490.62, funded by the La Laguna City Council, with the participation of the Municipal Services Area and the Urban Planning Management, and co-financed by the Ministry of Culture and the Government of the Canary Islands.
The residents of La Laguna will be able to participate in the citizen workshop that will take place from July 30, as well as in the virtual proposals that will be announced soon, to decide what images will be projected on San Agustín Street. The outcome of the pilot will determine whether the system is extended to other streets in the historic centre.
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