Los Damunt en blanc i negre
Los Damunt en blanc i negre
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A street photography exhibition to see how the neighborhood where Alaró was born has changed.
A street photography exhibition to see how the neighborhood where Alaró was born has changed.
Our lives and customs change. And so does the landscape that surrounds us. A stream has disappeared. No vegetables grow in the Plaza dels Horts. The house where an English or German family lives today was almost in ruins yesterday. Where is the Civil Guard barracks? No one works on the street anymore.
The Alaró Town Hall and the Associació Cultural Al Rum present the exhibition 'Los Damunt in Black and White.' We have searched for old photos ranging from the 1920s to the 1970s and hung them in locations near where they were originally taken. Walking through the streets of the neighborhood, you can compare how it was yesterday and how it has changed. Is it a superficial change or something much deeper? This is a debate we leave in your hands. On the following pages, you will find information about each photograph. Like in newspaper puzzles, look for the differences.
1. Carrer de Can Coixetí
1. Carrer de Can Coixetí
Where the street of Can Coixetí ends, Los Damunt begins. Here we find two roads that embrace the neighborhood. To the left, the road of sa Bastida. To the right, the road of the Torrent de s’Estret.
How has this area changed?
The stream is now covered. The level has risen by about two meters. The door seen in the white building on the left is now a window. In the background, you can barely see the bridge that connected to the street of Ca na Fara. The wall in the background was the garden of the Civil Guard barracks. To the right, Son Bieló before the cypresses were planted.
The photo was taken in the 1960s. The people in the picture are Master Antoni 'Coix' and his son of the same name.
(Photo from Rayo family)
2. Carrer Torrent de s’Estret
2. Carrer Torrent de s’Estret
The stream was covered in the early 1980s in the section that runs from the street of Ca na Fara to that of Can Coixetí.
The image shows the pipe installation work. In the background, the bridge that passed under the street of Can Coixetí would sometimes overflow when the rains were abundant. The stretch of the street was so narrow that it was difficult for a bicycle to share it with a car or a cart.
Years later, the section of the stream from Ca na Fara to the current Plaza dels Horts was also covered, and new houses were built on both sides.
(Photo by the Riera family)
3. Plaça dels Horts
3. Plaça dels Horts
The photo was published in 'Rutes Amagades de Mallorca' in the 1960s. We have just left Los Damunt. On the left, the path of ses Artigues will take us to the pass of s’Escaleta. On the right, a large esplanade with some fig trees. According to some oral testimonies, their fruit was rented. Archduke Ludwig Salvator wrote in 1869: 'Through a winding path, one crosses the valley to soon reach the house of Horts.'
From the 1980s onwards, the plot was urbanized, houses were built, and a square was created that reclaimed the toponym of Horts.
(Photo from 'Rutes Amagades de Mallorca')
4. Carrer de Son Duran
4. Carrer de Son Duran
It was formerly known as Carrer de la Font, as it connects the Plaça de Cabrit i Bassa with the path that leads to ses Artigues.
Comparing the current photograph with the one from the 1960s, one can see that few changes have occurred in the structure, but the houses, some of medieval origin, have been 'modernized' and the size of the windows has increased. The street was unpaved, and the gardens on the right were still active.
(Photo from 'Rutes Amagades de Mallorca')
5. Carrer de Son Duran
5. Carrer de Son Duran
This is an "atzcucac", a dead end, a narrow street with no exit. There are quite a few of them in Alaró. Almost all of them are opened perpendicularly to streets oriented from east to west.
The goal was for the houses to face south to receive sunlight during the winter days. In the old photo, you can see humble, rustic houses with a certain degree of abandonment.
This is quite different from the modernized houses of today, which have become objects of desire for foreign residents.
(Photo from 'Cançoner Popular de Catalunya')
6. Plaça de Cabrit i Bassa
6. Plaça de Cabrit i Bassa
It was and still is the epicenter of life in Los Damunt. In June, it hosts the Sant Pere festivities. There were shops and cafés.
For decades, the Civil Guard barracks were located here. In the image, you can see some of the oldest houses in the village, probably from the 14th or 15th centuries, with semicircular arches, although the division of one of the properties has resulted in a differently styled doorway.
The house on the left has been renovated. The electricity and telephone wires mar the aesthetics of this more than five-century-old corner.
(Photo from 'Cançoner Popular de Catalunya')
7. Plaça de Cabrit i Bassa
7. Plaça de Cabrit i Bassa
The old Civil Guard barracks decorated to celebrate the 'Day of Victory'? The 'Day of the Caudillo,' that is, October 1st, to commemorate his designation as dictator? The 'Day of the Race'?
In any case, this security force moved to this location in the post-war years from its old headquarters on Son Amengual Street, near the train station.
In the 1980s, a reorganization of the force concentrated the guards in Binissalem. The building was converted into a residential property. Today, there are no longer any signs or portraits of Franco, nor the 'Everything for the Fatherland' motto of the Civil Guard.
(Photo from Arxiu Municipal)
8. Plaça de Cabrit i Bassa
8. Plaça de Cabrit i Bassa
When entering the square from Carrer del Quarter, this is the view that the walker finds: on the left, the cistern with an incorporated pump built in 1866, from which the residents drew water before it was channeled.
In the background, Son Duran Street and, on the corner, the shop of Jerònia Borràs Homar, where neighbors bought groceries until the first decade of the 21st century. In those years, the neighborhood had its own life with many services independent from those of Los Davall. The ground was made of earth and stones. It wasn't until 1971 that the installation of the sewer system and the paving of the streets were approved. Since 2017, the square has been cobbled and semi-pedestrianized.
(Photo from 'Rutes Amagades de Mallorca')
9. Carrer de Can Cresta
9. Carrer de Can Cresta
Can anyone imagine today a group of seamstresses with their machines in the street? No way. Most urban streets are now territories colonized by cars. Fifty years ago, people socialized in the public space: children played ball or jumped rope, adults enjoyed the fresh air while chatting, and everyone considered it their own.
By the way, who was 'Cresta' of the toponym? We don't know, but in Alaró, there is a saying that goes 'fire and smoke from Cresta’s backside.' Is this the Cresta of the street? Or is it the peculiar Jaume Cresta who, they say, went to Palma on Sundays dressed in his work coat to watch the bullfights?
(Photo from the Ca sa Pollencina family)
10. Carrer de Son Borràs
10. Carrer de Son Borràs
Nadal Colomar, hands behind his back and beret on his head, walks along the last stretch of Son Borràs Street.
If Son Duran Street takes us to the ses Artigues fountain, this one also leads to a fountain: sa Bastida. The houses have changed little, and the landscape has not been modified much either. It takes its name from one of the ten water mills mentioned in the Llibre del Repartiment after the Conquest of James I. At the opposite end of where the photo is taken, the 17th-century houses built with stone blocks stand out.
(Photo from the Lillo/Ca sa Pollencina archive)
11. Carrer de Son Ros
11. Carrer de Son Ros
First communions were big celebrations. Like this one from Ca sa Pollencina, where they are photographed all dressed up on Son Ros Street. Once again, life outside the house.
By the way, is it Son Ros or Can Ros? Ros is the only person who has two streets dedicated to him in Alaró. The one in Los Davall with 'Can' and the one in Los Damunt with 'Son.' One question: does the stone wall seen on the right side of the photo still exist? The image is dated in the 1960s.
(Photo from the Lillo/Ca sa Pollencina archive)
12. Carrer de Can Tià Roig
12. Carrer de Can Tià Roig
Big celebration day on Can Tià Roig Street. Many neighbors have come out to bid farewell to the bride, Pedrona Reynés Colom, on February 7, 1959. She is accompanied by her father, Joan Baptista Reynés Roig, from Can Baranda, and her mother, Joana Aina Colom Ripoll, from Can Rec. A car waits in the background.
Observing the image, one can see that it has changed relatively. It is now paved. The first house on the left has been modernized. In the background, where Son Muntaner Street begins, the metal door of a garage disrupts the harmony of the old scene, as does the excess of wiring. The houses facing the courtyard and the small square on the left remain. The stone wall on the right has a very similar appearance.
(Photo Arxiu Joan Antoni Vallès)
13. Carrer de Sa Bastida
13. Carrer de Sa Bastida
We have moved this image from the original location where it was taken. The growth of the trees would not allow us to see the houses today, which have remained almost the same as half a century ago.
From left to right: the houses of sa Bastida with the hackberry courtyard, in front of which there was a threshing floor, which disappeared with the construction of a parking lot and a new access road to Camí de Vela. To the right of the photo, a large building is the old Can Teodoro shoe factory. It is on the corner with a courtyard at the back, where the Can Coixetí butcher shop was, and on the right, the house of the same family. It is supposed that the first 13th-century church was nearby. Where was it?
(Photo Arxiu Municipal)
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