A Nation of Monasteries: The Legacy of Víctor Balaguer in the Spanish Conception of National Monuments
Medieval Spanish monasteries were turned into monuments through a series of political struggles that claimed them for competing ideas of the nation from federalist, Catholic, regional, and fascist conceptions of Spain. Víctor Balaguer was a key figure in establishing the centrality of monasteries in the Spanish national imaginary. Monasteries, seen as nodes in a network that structured the Iberian territory since medieval times, were central to his political conception of the relation between Catalan and Spanish nationalism. Significantly, monasteries have remained central to debates about Spanish nationalism from 1835 to the World Heritage designations of the twentieth century. Seen in this light, monasteries appear more as instruments of political and cultural processes than as static objects. They are monuments in constant evolution, the changing and dynamic outcome of an intricate and complex process of confrontation and negotiation between social agents who struggle to define their value and meaning to the nation.
Guadalupe, Spain: The Organic Growth of a Monastery and the Morphology of a Medieval Village
The Royal Monastery of Guadalupe is the most important medieval monument in Extremadura, Spain. It is important for its architectural and artistic heritage, its history, and its impact on Spanish America. In 1993, the monastery achieved the highest symbol of respect: inclusion in the World Heritage List. However, at that time, there were no plans that illustrated the different stages of the growth of the monastery and the village. In this article, we present a number of previously unpublished plans, which depict the urban networks and the morphology of Guadalupe. These plans reveal the construction of an integrated historical landscape following seven centuries of history and interactions between humans and their environment. In addition, they portray the destruction of an important part of this heritage in recent years under the Regional Government of Extremadura because of a lack of urban planning.
Monitoring and Optimization of Internal Grinding Process
Summary The grinding process is influenced by many factors such as grinding wheel characteristics, dressing conditions and, course, grinding conditions. Therefore, it is difficult to perform the grinding operation in an optimum state. In this study, in-process monitoring methods using power and acoustics emission sensors are proposed to detect malfunctions in the internal grinding process. In addition, a new internal grinding cycle featuring rapid indeed is proposed to minimize the grinding cycle time.