English translation

joyas de galicia

92

conservas frinsa: bites of innovation (pages 16-19) If quality is its key symbol, innovation is one of its main tags. Since its foundation in 1961, the canning company Frinsa has not stopped exploring new paths, new sectors and new product lines in order to “always achieve maximum customer satisfaction”, in the words of its brand manager, Jorge Carregal García, the son of the company's current CEO.

Created in the Galician town of Ribeira, where it has its headquarters, Frinsa del Noroeste has become one of the largest European producers of canned tuna and seafood over the years, as well as a multinational group with a second factory in Póvoa de Varzim (Portugal) and offices in Madrid and in 9 other cities in Europe, Asia and Africa. A vast market in which the company's different brands have been successfully positioned: Frinsa, Ribeira, Seaside and The Nice Fisherman, among others, as well as being among the leading suppliers of canned fish and seafood to major European retailers.

However, far from just settling with its success, Frinsa's management is well aware that its growth and expansion is firmly based on the continuous improvement of its offer. And this is largely due to “innovation, both in procedures and in raw materials, always seeking to put the best product in the hands of the consumer,” explains Breixo Ventoso, the Group's R&D&I Manager.

The “La Conservera” stores, a project started in 2013, are a good example of this commitment to innovation and customer care. With 12 establishments located in A Coruña, Ribeira, Santiago de Compostela, Madrid, Valencia, Bilbao, Alicante, Murcia, Vitoria, Málaga and Paris, (the most recent one has opened up the international path of the initiative). “La Conservera” seeks to “create a direct channel” so that consumers “can access the best preserves with the best raw materials and following Frinsa's principles of maximum excellence,” Jorge points out.

Located in central, emblematic locations in each city, these shops offer the full range of Frinsa brand preserves. Judging by demand, the star products are fresh tuna belly from the Cantabrian coast, which is caught by local fishermen, and mussels, selected and packed by hand one by one. Although the most demanding palates can also enjoy seafood from the Galician Estuaries; octopus or cod are among other exquisite bites. ᴥ

the guarantee of an official rolex service (pages 32-34) A Rolex is much more than a watch. It is a travel companion and also by your side for challenges, a symbol of improvement and success, of effort and reward. Each Rolex marks the time of a personal story. And, in turn, it's a piece of another great story. A history of commitment and innovation that began more than a hundred years ago by Hans Wilsdorf and his creation of the first waterresistant wristwatch. But a Rolex watch is also a machine that shapes excellence and borders on perfection.

All of this makes up the true value of Rolex watches. A value that demands exquisite care and absolute confidence. And that can only be offered by the expert hands of workshops that are certified as the brand’s official technical service. In them, our Rolex will receive the care and professionalism required for its maintenance, in addition to the original parts that are exclusive to the firm. This is the only way to have a watch in perfect working order and with the Rolex guarantee.

“Of course, a Rolex is a watch for life,” says Sergio Doce, watchmaker in charge of the official technical service of Jael Joyería in Santiago de Compostela. “But it has to be looked after and every machine needs maintenance.” In the case of watches, he explains, “all mechanical movements work with oils that lose their qualities over time.” Doce advises that this fine tuning be carried out every 8 or 10 years for a watch with normal use, as well as to have the entire piece reviewed if it has been accidentally hit or been subject to any other incident.

He also recommends that both maintenance and servicing be carried out, of course, in workshops certified as official Rolex technical service centres. Firstly, because its professionals are watchmakers trained by the crown company, which offers them regular, continuous training and refresher courses. “You have to have specific training to repair and maintain a Rolex ,” he says, “because all the calibres, the internal mechanisms of the watch, are especially manufactured, that is, Rolex only assembles them for each of its watches”. So they are exclusive mechanisms that cannot be found in any other watch, nor are parts from any other brand incorporated. ᴥ

joyas de galicia

93

interview at the hilton: diego gonzález rivas (pages 44-46) The life of Diego González Rivas (A Coruña, 1974) became nomadic in 2010. That year he developed a video surgery technique, called Uniportal VATS, which allows thoracic surgery to be performed by opening a single hole in the patient's body and passing both the surgical instruments and the technology, which allows the doctor to see what he is operating on, through it. The two or three cuts that had to be performed until then, and the long weeks of pain and recovery, became history. Since then, this doctor from A Coruña has been glued to his diary and on board a plane, operating on five continents and teaching his technique to other colleagues. The pandemic, has put his life on hold, just like it has for everyone else, but he says that the important thing is to know how to reinvent yourself and never stay still, because nothing is impossible.

— Before the pandemic I lived almost more in China than here.

Not because it is a well-known image of this Compostela hidden from view, but because it is a disturbing image: on the eaves of the Hostal dos Reis Católicos, in front of the third largest Catholic pilgrimage site in the world, a granite sculpture twists and turns, offering the spectator a direct view of its genitals and its backside. The vision becomes even stranger if it rains, because water oozes from the hole in question. This gargoyle, together with its fifty companions, was built with a utilitarian sense (to evacuate the liquid), but also with a symbolic intention. Otherwise, why go to so much trouble and play around with such bold designs?

About fifty figures surround the Hostal on its east, west and south sides. Although the building was erected in the early 16th century, its gargoyles were probably carved a little later, just when this architectural element was beginning to go out of fashion in the rest of Europe, with the demure airs of the Renaissance. They were

— They have very restrictive measures. I can go, if I want to, but I have to undertake a twoweek quarantine and I don't know if I could psychologically stand that. But I'm looking forward to going back to China, which is where I have the most workload. I work in several hospitals, operate and teach courses. The technique I developed became very popular, so I am based there, at the Shanghai Pulmonary Hospital. From there we train surgeons from all over the world to learn the technique. We do 80 surgeries a day, which is a lot: in Europe we do 3 a day and in the US, eight or ten.

— Back home, do you feel recognised?

— Yes. People recognise me. It's not the same; in China I have much more recognition.

— Why more there than here?

— Well, because they're very good surgeons with very open minds. China is at an impressive level in medicine, in everything. A a fantastic invention for the time. Their main virtue is that they channel the water and keep it away from the walls.

In the Hostal there are wild boars and devils with fierce teeth, threatening the passer-by. Others are particularly curious. One which is particularly so, is the one of the man that is having a bowel movement just to the right of the Hostal’s plateresque façade. It is a deliberately lewd image that makes one reflect on what the sculptor who sculpted it might have been thinking. Perhaps, as the journalist Benxamín Vázquez states, the stonemasons wanted to reflect in part the atmosphere of The Garden of Delights, painted by El Bosco a few years earlier and in which the profusion of bottoms and lustful scenes is evident. Or that, as Professor Herrero points out, simply the relationship that existed in those times with faeces and other human secretions was not as distant as the one we have today: “Like dung, lot of people don't know this, but in hospitals and development they're huge. And they are tireless workers. I'm very grateful to China for everything they've given me.

— Why are you a surgeon?

— I wanted to be a doctor since I was a child: my mother says that I wanted to "make people laugh and cure them". I was always a very hands-on person, and I thought that with surgery I could do that, treat the disease directly. It was a good guess because surgery is so exciting.

— What do you feel when you operate? Fear, responsibility?

— I've operated in 111 countries, a record in the history of medicine. Going to operate in other countries is a challenge. You're on your own. At first I felt a lot of tension, stress. I'd arrive at a new hospital with no material, no equipment, with complicated patients. That's what made

protectors of the hostal (pages 58-61)

me mature as a surgeon. ᴥ they were part of the cycle of life, death and rebirth, and like all other matter found their way into the pages of prayer books.” On the same main façade, on the left, another figure offers his buttocks to the spectator. It is a dog, symbol of the faithful guardian.

As you turn the corner on rua San Francisco, the spectacle of monsters and wild animals continues, interrupted by several very curious images. In two of them, a man rides a beast, trying to open its jaws, something that is related to the sin of gluttony and the desire to eat more than one can digest. Beyond that, a woman opens her mouth with a gesture of horrible pain, covering part of her face with a hand, perhaps repenting of her sins. Then another man showing his backside, a lion with a child between its legs and, then in the corner, the perfidious Greek gorgon, capable of transforming into stone anyone who looks into her eyes. ᴥ

joyas de galicia

94

view point from the ceiling

of galicia (pages 12-13) The three braces supporting the radio antenna crowning Torre Hercón in A Coruña buzz in the wind. This is the case even on days with good weather, because the building, also known as Torre Costa Rica because of the street it is located in, is the highest in Galicia since its construction in the early seventies. Fifty years reigning over the heights and no one has yet dared to challenge its 119 metres in height.

Torre Hercón is the perfect portrait of a city in a specific period, A Coruña in the last stages of Franco's regime. The population of the city was then constantly growing, supplied by Galicians from all the provinces attracted by the economic power of the port and industry. The city grew horizontally, with little building land as it was in a peninsula. The building, designed by José Antonio Franco Taboada, grew at the same time as the neighbouring Torre Trébol (90 metres) and the Torres y Sáez building (78 metres), and very soon after the Torre Galicia (a work by Gallego Jorreto, 80 metres). They are all concentrated in just a few square kilometres and form the closest thing in the Community to an American downtown.

The concrete structure of the Torre Hercón was forged between 1973 and 1975. The building houses 90 homes and also offices, both on the lower floors and at the top, where the CRTVG delegation in the city is located. It is slim and has a three-pointed star shape, which is why the architects' guild calls it the scale ruler because of its similarity to this measuring instrument. The person responsible for his project, Franco Taboada, was not yet thirty years old when he began to design it. Hercón was the construction company that built it, and in fact the company’s name stood out at the top of the building for many years. From its terrace, the 360-degree view is overwhelming, with the entire peninsula of A Coruña at its feet, the succession of inlets and outlets of the Artabrian coast in the background, the gentle undulations of the province's interior to the south and the roughness of the port facilities. ᴥ

the infinite window

(pages 22-23) Its small size does not allow us to guess the immensity of the panorama it offers us. However, when you put your eye on the eyepiece of the telescope at the Ramón María Aller Astronomical Observatory of the University of Santiago de Compostela, the largest window in the city opens up to us.

The Galilean satellites of Jupiter, the rings of Saturn, double stars, star clusters, nebulae, galaxies and, of course, the moon with its craters, are some of the elements that we can observe in the vast landscape of the universe that the infinite window offers us.

But there are other points, in this city and in all Galicia, that, without the need of instruments, allow us to travel millions of kilometres just by looking at the sky. In recent months, for example, the planet Mars or the approach of Jupiter and Saturn have been seen with the naked eye until they are “apparently together, which constitutes a spectacle”, explains José Ángel Docobo Durántez, professor of Astronomy and director of the Observatory.

Watching the night sky can turn our evenings into true nights of altitude. However, such scenarios are currently difficult in some settings. “Light pollution has meant that observation from cities has been rather limited,” laments Docobo, for whom it is essential to “recover the cultural and scientific asset that is the dark sky”. Even so, he points out, “urban astronomy is possible and will be even more so if common sense is imposed and what needs to be illuminated is illuminated, not the sky”. Outside the most urban areas, however, “there are still plenty of places from which you can see, for example, the Milky Way”, which is closely related to the Way of Saint James and which “some time ago could be seen from the Plaza del Obradoiro.” ᴥ the patient window (pages 28-29) Of all the windows that have accompanied us throughout our lives, those present during periods of convalescence in a hospital have a special meaning. We may not remember what they looked like, but we do remember the world that was perceived on the other side. In those moments they became our real connection to the outside world and our longing to get it back. For that reason, windows have also been of paramount importance during recent lockdowns, when we became patients inside our homes, opening multiple virtual windows on electronic devices and making the real recesses of our buildings into social areas so as to talk to neighbours, hang up hopeful messages, or simply search for the horizon.

In our hospitals, such as the Marítimo de Oza, located near a former tuberculosis hospital, these details are also taken care of. The architects Andrés Reboredo and Albert de Pineda proposed a long landscape window, which brings the estuary to one’s bedside. These horizontal strips are the characteristic image of the building's façades, a long stone volume surrounded by the trees of the coast line. The landscape of the city and the sea thus become close to the patient, bringing a therapeutic value to the stay.

Over the past few months we have regained interest in windows. Architecture is condensed in this link between two worlds, dissolving the limits between the immediate and the distant and, sometimes, between reality and hope. ᴥ

joyas de galicia

95

the torre de la carraca

(pages 38-41) In recent months, the cathedral of Santiago has incorporated a visit to the Torre de la Carraca into its cultural offerings, located to the left of those who look at the façade of the Obradoiro; so called because it contains the Carraca, the large wooden instrument that resonates on Good Friday replacing the majestic bells of its partner on the south side.

The Romanesque façade underwent several partial reforms. The destruction caused by a lightning strike on the façade in 1729 was the best excuse for the Town Council to decide to commission a new project that would balance the appearance of the complex, manifest the greatness and uniqueness of the Church of Santiago, developing a whole programme of Jacobean apotheosis, as had been done previously in the main chapel, and finally recover the interior lighting of the cathedral through the large openings in the new façade. These works would begin, under the direction of the aforementioned Fernando de Casas, in 1738 and would last until 1750.

Fernando de Casas took advantage of the pre-existing structures to give harmony to the façade. To this end, he made the two towers equal, repeating in the one of La Carraca the appearance of the one of the Bells, even adding its bracket and lateral space on the terrace; configuring a central body dominating its large openings and developing, in the complex, an iconographic programme of exaltation of that which is Jacobean that is crowned, on the crest, with the image of St James as a Pilgrim adored by the Spanish monarchy.

The work on the Torre de la Carraca completed the project for the new façade of the Obradoiro, although Fernando de Casas died shortly before seeing it finished, so his assistants Lucas Ferro Caaveiro and Clemente González Sarela took charge. Soon, the façade became an icon of a modern cathedral in Compostela that, at the same time, was respectful of its history, integrating its previous elements that went, from the hand of Casas, to be adorned in the baroque style, without losing its essence, with this. ᴥ

face to face with a coruña

(pages 64-65) From Naval beach it is easy to understand why A Coruña has been so important to the history of Galicia. Here the natural architecture of the bay can be perfectly distinguished, closed on itself and with a not very narrow access (such as that of the Ferrol estuary), but complicated and full of shoals that you have to know so as not to end up shipwrecked. Just remember the many ships that wanted to access without taking the proper precautions and ended up running aground, and surely some relatively recent episodes come to mind.

The beach is part of the Dorneda parish and the Oleiros municipality, fundamental in the Coruña hinterland. Thousands of people live in this area and day by day move to the city to work, do their shopping or enjoy leisure. And vice versa: its sandy areas, like this one in Naval, are a pole of attraction for people from Coruña who flee from the asphalt to enjoy a sunny day or a walk in the mountains.

The panorama summarizes very well several characteristics that have made the city great. Next to it is the castle of Santa Cruz, which was part of the defences of the Herculine port along with the castle of Santo Antón (on the right, protruding from the nose of the Coruña peninsula) and that of San Diego, now disappeared. The latter was eaten by one of the enlargements of the port, the authentic economic and cultural engine of Galicia, because not only goods and foreign currency have entered here, but also culture, ways of seeing the world and even football and rock and roll . The port mass of A Coruña continues to dominate the centre of the picture that can be seen from Oleiros, backed by the skyscrapers of a city that made growing in height a way of being.

Finally, to the left, a space as dynamic as it is symbolic these days: the hospitals. In a small area are the old Oza hospital, the modern Marítimo, the CHUAC mole and, beyond As Xubias, the Teresa Herrera. In places like these, the most important battle of this generation is being fought these days. And it will be won, for sure. ᴥ

compostela from the hedjuk

towers (pages 70-71) There is a magnificent view of the city of Santiago from the glassed-in, open-plan interior of these sister towers, designed by New York architect John Hedjuk (19292000), and referred to by his colleague in The New York Five, Peter Eisenman, as a disembodied church. Initially intended for Belvís Park, and with a twenty metre height, they are located on the southern side of Monte Gaias. At present they host cultural and educational activities, a use that is very different from their original function; they were planned as botanical towers. Their strange physiognomy has elevated them to the category of universal icon of the City of Culture.

In perfect harmony between architecture and landscape, these curious buildings have been immersed in the so-called Galician Forest, a real green lung where various trees native to our community grow: oaks, chestnuts, laurels and birches, among other plant species, which have been planted with the participation of many citizens and schoolchildren. A three kilometre long path to walk or cycle along, dotted with rest viewpoints, allows you to reach Ballena park, a children's leisure area presided over by the cetacean that pays tribute to one of the great Galician painters, Urbano Lugris, in whose work the reference to the marine world is recurrent.

The area around the Hedjuk towers is populated by various buildings that make up the architectural complex of the City of Culture, including the Gaiás Museum, which covers an exhibition area of over seven thousand square metres, and the Galician Library, which houses the legacy of numerous Galician artists and intellectuals. The legacy of Isaac Díaz Pardo, the library of Basilio Losada, the works of Carlos Casares, the manuscripts of Camilo José Cela and various works and engravings by Seoane are part of its collections.

A balanced interaction takes place between the space where the Hedjuk towers and Santiago de Compostela are located, a kind of dialogue between hill and city. From the Hedjuk towers and the terraces located at its feet, rising above the green pedestal of the native forest, we can enjoy magical evenings and impressive sunsets, which have nothing to envy from those enjoyed by the pilgrims in Fisterra. ᴥ