Description of the centre

This interpretation centre rescues and highlights the historical importance of plaster as a material widely used in traditional architecture. Although it is no longer important or frequently used today, its study and exhibition offers the opportunity to value and recover a highly versatile material. In addition, it allows the use of ancient elements and construction techniques that are markedly different from those used in contemporary architecture to be recovered.

The compositional characteristics of traditional plaster make this material a bio-sustainable product, both for restoration work and for the construction of new buildings. It also offers the possibility of rescuing and reconstructing the history of the productive and constructive tradition of gypsum, together with its relationship with the cultural development of the society of the municipality of Suflí. Thus, the Suflí Gypsum Interpretation Centre rescues and values the traditional gypsum as an identifying element of the Spanish populations, allowing the valuation and social appropriation of this material together with the cultural load of its production and use.

This theoretical-practical interpretation centre is a large quarry based on the production and use of traditional plaster in the Almanzora region, which pays special attention to the state of conservation of the deposits, the quarries and the artisan ovens, as well as the characteristics of the traditional architecture made with this material, focusing on the qualities of this construction material. The traditional plaster constructions obey construction techniques shared by various Spanish regions, so that it is possible to appreciate and establish links directly associated with the closest and most accessible natural resources, although this type of architecture is strongly related to the historical heritage of the Muslim occupation.