The Intervention Plan Románico Atlántico, signed in September of 2010 by the Autonomous Government of Castile and Leon, the Iberdrola Foundation, and the Cultural Ministry of Portugal, has achieved the recuperation of the first of many of the churches that will benefit from this program, the church of Santa María Magdalena in the municipality of Cozcurrita, Zamora. The Councilwoman of Culture and Tourism in Zamora, María José Salgueiro, the General Director of the Iberdrola Foundation, Luis Carlos Martínez, accompanied by the General Director of the Santa Maria la Real Foundation, Juan Carlos Prieto, as well as representatives from the Bishopric of Zamora and the Town council of Cozcurrita visited the church to check the development of the work
The Church of Santa María Magdalena possessed an electrical installation in poor conditions that conflicted with the historical and artistic value of the church. Moreover, the installation couldn’t guarantee a minimum level of security. The intervention focused on introducing illumination that was more appropriate for this monumental building, decreasing the aesthetic impact and incorporating an adequate level of security. For this, the technicians considered incorporating continuous light but at the same time illuminating subtly the most relevant points in the church, such as the altarpieces and the baptismal font.
One of the objectives of the Plan Románico Atlántico is to achieve an optimum level of protection and maintenance of the cultural goods utilizing the latest technology and most innovative solutions. Therefore, the Monitoring Heritage System (MHS) has been installed in the church of Santa María Magdalena. MHS is a control system, in real time, of different parameters that can affect the conservation of the church for example moisture and temperature. To avoid this, and to improve the protection of the church, the system counts on a series of sensors installed in the church that emit information on these parameters (regular and wireless connections) to the control center. There, they are processed and interpreted in order to act before a potentially dangerous situation happens. This is what we call preventive conservation.
