In the Face of the Pandemic COVID 19, the Strength of Healthy Spaces Add Value to the Spirit of Place in the City of Alcalá de Henares

Abstract

Alcalá de Henares, a historic city located in the Community of Madrid, Spain. Shaken by the emergency of the COVID19 pandemic, which, due to its proximity to Barajas airport, had an immediate impact. Known for its extensive cultural heritage since the Roman city of Complutum, and with a vision of the future applied during the last fifty years, it made the restoration process of the Golden Age University, devastated by Napoleon III and Franco in the twentieth century, the lever that led it to be recognized as a world heritage site by UNESCO.

The relevance of those who were its main social actors in the promotion of the role of health, quality of care and revaluation of healthy spaces as a new indispensable support in the life of the city. They make this testimony a sample button of a success story that joined since 1973 to build up a new vision, deepens the spirit of the place of this legendary city.

Protagonist Alcalaíno of the sense of entrepreneurship of a dream that began with a laboratory and a pharmacy, to become consolidated as a Medical Center motor of the improvement of the urban fabric, the Complutense Virtus Medical Center headed by Ramon Goya Ramos, Maria del Rosario Gato, Juan Ramon and Francisco Goya Gato, highlight the relevance of being protagonists of the resilient framework of a modern city, which has managed to take root in the dialogue with its memory, the relevance the innovation and the sense of shared future destiny acquires.  

This vision is translated into initiatives that mark this new phase of resilience of a city that identifies with the Humanism program and has the importance of common purpose in life. Anchored in the coherent management of the Municipality, which is also the foundation of the hometown of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, author of the novel "Don Quijote de la Mancha". In his honor, the prize for the most outstanding representatives of Ibero-American literature is awarded annually in the auditorium of the rectorate building.

A representative landmark of the landscape of La Mancha, whose historic center is characterized by the authenticity of its architectural richness and its important role in the history of Spain. The "City of Knowledge", accompanied by the integrality of an uninterrupted urban management over the last fifty years, whose management master plan shines for the materialized character of its public heritage spaces, derived from the planning that brings with it the development of its peripheral growth. Accompanied by the word, dialogue and encounter with great literary figures, historians and professors everywhere, this student city vibrates by the living sense of its faculties, schools and museums, works of art, forums for meeting and debate, choirs, hotels, restaurants and cafes, through which flow popular festivals and public spaces that are home to storks. That accompany the light of the encounter with the profile of streets with sculptures and stained glass windows that define the character of habitability to such a peculiar place of La Mancha in Spain.