If only Mallorca could be like Benidorm

Especially if you had to be, because they’d decided to build everything so high - reach for the skies.
The Hornabeque Tower isn’t the tallest building in Palma. That honour belongs to the Torre de Es Fortí. It is 72 metres high. On the Son Castelló industrial estate is the Asima Tower; that is 64 metres high. Respectively, these were built in 1968, 1972 and 1973. The days of the construction Wild West? Probably not; it was just that they used to go in for tall buildings back in the day. They still do of course. But not in Palma; not in Mallorca.

Fernando Gallardo is the secretary of the board of directors of Alianza Hotelera, a grouping of hotel chains in Spain. He was in Mallorca recently and spoke at the eMallorca Experience Week during a forum entitled ‘Accelerating the transition towards sustainability’. While what he had to say was in the context of tourism sustainability, there was a broader implication - that of urban sustainability in general. I latched on to Gallardo’s opinions because he happened to mention Benidorm. Oh my, Benidorm. I checked. It was fifteen years ago that I first wrote about Benidorm in terms of sustainability. Fifteen years ago, and now it was being spoken about at a public forum in Mallorca, one about a transition towards sustainability which, in certain regards, should no longer require being spoken about; it should have happened or definitely be happening. And this has to do with how living is ordered in a place with limited land - a place like Mallorca.

Gallardo was asked how the increase in pressure - human pressure - should be managed in terms of the better use of resources. He said: “We talk about how we want to protect the territory, but we do not realise that the model to perhaps be imitated is that of Benidorm. It is a model of tourism sustainability because it has achieved vertical growth that doesn’t consume much territory and which makes all public services and infrastructure more efficient and allows all the surroundings to be free of construction. This is something that other supposedly more ecological tourism models do not do because in the end they consume more territory.”

He made reference to the fact Benidorm has become a case study for academic research and university studies in geography and urban planning. This is because fifteen years ago it was being held up as something of an ideal for eco-tourism, and then in 2010, The Future Laboratory consultancy in London compiled a report for Thomson Holidays. ‘Sustainable Holiday Futures’ alluded to the ‘Benidorm Effect’. In essence, this concluded that clustering tourists into what the report termed “super-holiday hubs” would mean less environmental damage, so long as the resort was geared up for monitoring and managing resources. And Benidorm was.

But as I say, this isn’t just about holiday resorts, even though there are obvious implications for Mallorca’s; it has to do with general planning. In 2011, architects Carlos Ferrater and Xavier Martí won the National Architecture Award for a project in Benidorm. A contribution by them was published in a book of the same year. They wrote: “It is worth asking if the Benidorm model has not been one of the most sustainable on the Spanish coast due to aspects such as the small amount of territory consumed - just a few hectares - and the very low use of public transport, given that any part of the population is within a distance of the beach not exceeding ten minutes on foot.”

Buildings in Benidorm dwarf those of Palma. Intempo, the futuristic M-shaped building that has been rescued from bankruptcy, is 192 metres. It is the tallest. Even the fifth tallest, the Kronos Building, is 140 metres. It’s not that I could ever envisage such skyscrapers in Mallorca, but the example of Benidorm should be considered in light of the great pressures on housing. The architects college in the Balearics and the property developers association are among those advocating taller buildings and greater density.

The ideal has been to restrain height, yet this ideal, allied to a low-rise philosophy that contributes to greater urban sprawl (or has done), is increasingly being shown to be inefficient. When it comes, for example, to water resources, the US Environmental Protection Agency is one body to have concluded that low-density development doesn’t best protect resources. Higher density is a better way.
Tall buildings packed into “hubs” may not align with a romantic image of Mallorca, but then being romantic is redundant when one is talking about living space and efficiencies. And Benidorm, odd though it may seem, has pointed the way.