Zaragoza City Council has invested €348,608 in an intervention that has required restorers to work for months across the monument’s eight levels, which rise more than 16 meters. The work has included cleaning and consolidating the stone and treating the bronze elements, as well as restoring deteriorated volumes and removing stains, crusts and remnants of previous interventions. Once the scaffolding is removed, only perimeter fencing will remain while finishing work is completed on the base and staircase.
One of the most striking tasks has been cleaning the bronze sculptures, including the Allegory of Zaragoza that crowns the monument. Restorers have used techniques such as laser cleaning to remove black crusts and other remains accumulated over decades. The intervention has also revealed damage that had been hidden beneath a wash applied during the 1998 restoration, forcing some of the initially planned work to be adapted.
THIS IS HOW THE IMPERIAL EAGLE WAS STABILIZED
Nine technicians are working to ensure that the sculptural monument is ready before the Pilar Festivities
The restoration has also had to address a particularly delicate structural problem: the stability of the imperial eagle incorporated into the sculptural ensemble. Analysis detected a safety risk affecting the piece, which was ultimately resolved through a modern fastening system using fiberglass rods. The result will restore much of the monument’s original appearance after it suffered erosion, exfoliation, black stains, flaking and material loss.
"We are very satisfied with the pace and quality of the execution of this project, which will give new life and an unprecedented brightness to a monument that is extremely important to our city," Urban Planning official Víctor Serrano said during his visit.
The Los Sitios Monument was inaugurated in 1908 during the Hispano-French Exhibition and was created by sculptor Agustín Querol. Conceived as a large circular diorama, it combines sandstone, limestone and bronze to depict different scenes and symbols related to the Sieges of Zaragoza.
