The Special Plan for the Port of Malaga will integrate the city centre with the bay, providing a new leisure and recreation area for local residents. The Palm Grove of Surprises will be one of the landmark symbols of this ambitious project.
Above, María Zambrano Station, the future epicentre of Malaga’s transport system with the arrival of the highspeed AVE and the launch of the Metro. 
Virtual image of Pablo Ruiz Picasso Airport once work has been completed on the new terminal and the second runway.
Representation of the Guadalmedina Plan.
Malaga Park, where a complete refurbishment project is well underway.
The former Tabacalera cigarette factory and future Car Museum.
The Buenavista Palace, home of the Malaga Picasso Museum.
Sports Centre, with the Martín Carpena Stadium and the Athletics Track.
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Malaga is the very essence of a city based on the triumph of the human spirit. The provincial capital, which suffered hard times in the 19th century and during the fi rst 50 years of the 20th, has succeeded in bringing together not only political but also social forces with a shared aim: to create a fi rst-class city without the need for any great world event of international standing. A project for the long haul which is now beginning to bear its fi rst fruits through the recovery of public spaces of great architectural, historical and social value with the Refurbishment Plan for the Historical City Centre, along with the opening of countless cultural centres. According to fi gures published by the City Council, the number of complexes given over to cultural events rose by more than one hundred percent between 2003 and 2006. The CAC (Contemporary Arts Centre), the Municipal Museum and its temporary exhibitions, the Moreno Villa and Denis Belgrano exhibition halls and a new Picasso Foundation, the Interactive Music Museum, the Gibralfaro Castle Visitor Centre and the galleries of the Alcazaba citadel are the new spaces which the council has put into service as exhibition venues over the last ten years. A year-long cultural calendar has successfully supplemented these with major events such as the Malaga Cinema Festival, now in its tenth year, the star-studded seasons at the Teatro Cervantes, the International Cultural Tourism Fair, along with concerts, performances and major events at a range of venues, including the magnifi cent Municipal Auditorium and the high-tech Exhibition and Convention Centre.
To all the above we may add the restoration of the Roman theatre by the Andalusian Department of Culture, and the refurbishment of the Buenavista Palace, which now houses the new Picasso Museum and which has had a catalytic effect on trade and tourism within the city itself.
With all this, and the various new museum projects listed below, Malaga is competing to be European City of Culture in 2016, easily meeting all the requirements in order to realise this ambition.
Meanwhile, the creation of large-capacity sporting venues, such as the Martín Carpena Sports Centre, the Athletics Stadium and the remodelling of the Rosaleda Stadium allowed Malaga to be included as a secondary site for Madrid’s bid to host the 2012 Olympic Games.
IMPROVEMENTS IN TRANSPORT AND MOBILITY
One key aspect in the progress of any city is the availability of suitable access roads and ease of mobility around the centre, something which Malaga had previously lacked. This situation led Central Government to embark on the expansion and improvement of three fundamental transport nodes: the port, airport and railways.
The Port of Malaga, through its Special Plan, has practically doubled its capacity to receive cruise ships through the construction of a new dock, and in 2006 welcomed a total of 227 vessels (10 using it as their home port) and 220,000 passengers, making it the second in the country after Barcelona. The projects set out in the Special Plan and included in the 2nd Strategic Plan will see the creation of the new San Andrés Marina and 24 berths for yachts of up to thirty metres. But without a doubt, what has most caught the imagination of the people of Malaga is the opening up of the complex to the city. This will create new leisure and cultural spaces, completely transforming the old town of Malaga, with planning already underway of the projects known as the ‘Farola Lighthouse Marina’ and the ‘Palm Grove of Surprises’.
As for Pablo Ruiz Picasso Airport, the major building which has been in progress since 2004, and will continue until 2010, with a planned budget of 980 million euros, will considerably increase the capacity and services it can offer. Malaga’s airport, currently the fourth-largest in the country in terms of passenger and freight traffi c, will easily be able to handle 20 million passengers per year, compared with the fi gure of 13 million on commercial fl ights in 2006.
One project which is already a reality, and on a major scale, is the new María Zambrano Railway Station. This is the fi rst step towards the arrival of the high-speed AVE train in the heart of the Malaga, with connections also to the city’s airport.
These transport infrastructure projects are rounded off by the work begun in 2006 to equip Malaga with a Metro system which will connect these three nodes with every major point of the city. The project, involving the Regional Government of Andalusia and the City Council of Malaga, will represent an improvement in the quality of life of local residents, while also making it easier for the tourists who are visiting in greater numbers every year to move around the city.
OBJETIVE: 2016
The City Council of Malaga has set about the task of achieving its aim of becoming European City of Culture in 2016. Among the 10 fl agship projects included in the 2nd Strategic Plan for Malaga are the so-called “Mediterranean Forum” and “Malaga Tour”. The fi rst of these includes a raft of schemes to make the city as attractive as possible throughout the year, the fi rst results of which will soon be seen with the opening of the cultural spaces mentioned above and the hosting of major cultural events.
The “Malaga Tour” project refers to the new tourist and cultural facilities which will be made available over the coming years in the city, with the added value of restoring historic areas to create an open-air mega-museum, as can already be seen in the historic city centre. The document also includes the following key proposals: the Industrial Archaeology Museum, a specialist guitar museum, the opening of the Fine Arts Museum at the Malaga Customs House and the Archaeological Museum, the promotion of the figure of Picasso and other leading names, such as the writers of the Generation of ‘27, as a focus for international tourism; the Malaga Food and Wine Biennial - a worldwide summit for creatives, trends and products; the promotion of convention tourism through a business centre integrated into the Convention Centre; and the promotion of language tourism, specifically the teaching of Spanish to foreign students.
As if that were not enough, the local government is also working to set up the Car Museum in the old Tabacalera tobacco plant. The site will house the Magalhaes collection, one of the most important in Europe, featuring over one hundred vintage vehicles, with supplementary exhibits and two temporary shows per year.
The Flamenco Museum is also already now a reality. Located on Calle Ramón Franquelo, it is the headquarters of the Juan Breva Association, with its collection of some 5,000 musical items connected with the history of flamenco.
Finally, there are also plans this year for the Palacio Villalón, on Calle Compañía, in the form of the Malaga History Museum, featuring such emblematic elements as the city crest, the linguistic evolution of the place name itself and the constitutional decree of the province. It will take the form of a chronological trip through the three thousand years of the history of Malaga, with exhibits, reconstructions, projections, etc. |
