Dec 2, 2021
“Cardón” Cinema: industrial heritage destined to improve the quality of life of the people of Paraguaná.
Cultural heritage as a concept had its greatest expansion at the end of the 20th century, when it was understood the need to value, in addition to tangible (historical, archaeological) and even intangible (customs, cultural expressions) traditional goods, the urban, territorial and social historical context of human groups.
This new category is included within the so-called emerging heritages, referring to the assets derived from industrial history, modern/contemporary culture, ethnological, and all those related to the social, cultural and economic changes of the new century
The Nizhny Tagil Charter on Industrial Heritage (Moscow, 2003), adopted by the International Committee for the Conservation of Industrial Heritage (TICCIH), defines it as “the remains of industrial culture that possess historical, technological, social, architectural or scientific value. These remains consist of buildings and machinery, workshops, mills and factories, mines and sites for processing and refining, warehouses and depots, places where energy is generated, transmitted and used, means of transport and all their infrastructure, as well as sites where social activities related to industry, such as housing, religious worship or education, take place.
The material evidence of these great changes is of universal human value, and the importance of its study and conservation should be recognized. Equally, such heritage has social significance as part of the record of life of human groups, thus providing a high level of identity.
Since 1914, with the exploitation of the “La Alquitrana” well in western Venezuela and its commercialization by the Caribbean Petroleum Company, the country became a pole of attraction for international capital, with the consequent need to transform its typically agricultural infrastructure used mainly to produce coffee and cocoa, in order to satisfy the new development needs.
To this effect, it is required to communicate the territory through the so-called oil roads, complemented by bridges, railroad terminals, ports and airports, among others.
Now, the most important support of the nascent industrialization was the housing of the workers and employees of the oil companies, and the arrival of family members to share this new habitat. Thus, the so-called “oil camps” were built, which included facilities such as health centers, schools, sports areas, social clubs, cinemas, commissaries, churches, squares, among others, in order to form centers of urban life.
However, the oil fields and the infrastructure developments ad Internum and around them varied depending on the payroll and rank of the workers. Thus, there were fields for workers and fields for management, with a special focus on representatives of foreign oil companies.
All this represented an abrupt technical, social and territorial change, reconfiguring regional identities, while introducing new customs and habits.
In 1875, an earthquake fractured the land of the Hacienda ¨La Alquitrana¨, near Rubio, Táchira State, Western Venezuela. From the trench sprouted oil, and although the company ¨Petrolia del Táchira¨, exploited, refined and sold oil derivatives, but in an artisanal way and only until 1934. Now, in the Eastern Coast of Lake Maracaibo in the State of Zulia, the first great transformations took place, especially after the exploitation of the “Zumaque” well in 1914 and with it, the beginning of massive and large-scale production in Venezuela. In the Costa Oriental del Lago, the fields of the Simón Bolívar coastal belt, Cabimas and Lagunillas were built, the latter two later becoming cities.
During the years of the Presidency of Isaías Medina Angarita, and with the application of a legal regime favorable to national interests, the Cardón and Amuay Refineries were built in 1936 in the Paraguaná Peninsula of Falcón State, at the westernmost point of the territory. They were inaugurated in 1949 and would later be integrated to form the Paraguaná Refining Center (CRP), catalogued as the largest in the world.
This fact generated great transformations in the “modus vivendi” of the inhabitants of the Paraguayan region, since oil fields were also built for the residences of the workers, as well as the respective infrastructure to promote the recently implanted economic activity.
Within this context, we can frame the project that we carried out from PDVSA La Estancia, an institution that I created and directed for 10 years, in the Paraguaná oil area, where we also had a headquarters in what was once the residence of the General Manager of the Refining Centre.
It was the “Cardón Cinema”, an open-air structure that had been built in 1947/1948, as one of the facilities destined for the enjoyment and entertainment of the inhabitants of the oil field.
The also called “a plein air” cinema, together with the drive-in movie theaters, were important spaces for socializing from the 50’s onwards worldwide. Particularly, in the oil field of the Cardón Refinery, the open-air cinema that bears its name was considered an obligatory meeting place in the area.
Unfortunately, the maintenance of the cinema, as well as most of the non-oil installations of the oil camps, for many years, were not considered a priority in the crude oil exploitation activity in the country, for which reason their deterioration became evident.
After an exhaustive tour of the Cardón Field facilities in Paraguaná, and by virtue of the request made by the communities, we found in the first quarter of 2013, this treasure of our industrial oil heritage: the Cardón Cinema.
It is a building with a large trapezoidal auditorium, where the main access areas are located, including the box office, corridors, sanitary facilities and projection room, in the spectator area there are 3 seating areas divided by sloping corridors towards the stage and delimited perimetrically by two walls built in openwork block, the stage integrates the wooden decking, dressing rooms and warehouses. In 1955 the stage was modified to install projection equipment in the then new ¨Cinemascope¨ system. This modification made it possible to hold concerts and other cultural events in comfort, enlarging the stage area and optimizing the sound system.
Between June 2013 and March 2014, we carried out the rehabilitation with PDVSA La Estancia. The project was organized in two stages: the first one was diagnostic, where the historical and archaeological research of the building and its surrounding areas was carried out, as well as evaluations of the physical state of the building. The second was the execution of the rehabilitation, restoration and conditioning works of the building and its immediate context.
The intervention considered the rehabilitation of the main access, the cover of the corridors, preserving the wooden structure and the conditioning of the projection room, the pavement of the spectator area was intervened, as well as the reinterpretation of the seats and the perimeter walls, culminating with the restitution of the wooden decking, the maintenance of the metal structure of the roof and the construction of the envelope of the stage, in the process of intervention the services were updated, including the internal lighting of the building.
The surroundings of the structure were also rehabilitated, as well as its green areas.
On the day of its inaugural delivery in 2013, the inhabitants of Paraguaná; and, most especially, the oil workers, gathered with their families and friends, and enjoyed a documentary filming about the cinema, its history, which was also their own, to then delight in a beautiful traditional Venezuelan concert, in which the children were the protagonists.
The interest and public affection for the industrial heritage and the appreciation of its values are the surest ways to preserve it. The “Cardón” Cinema is intrinsic to the people of Paraguay, it is part of their social fabric, of their historical daily life. Its social use favors the encounter, the neighborhood and with it, the creative complicity of those who have shared a common history.
We hope that the “ Cardón” Cinema will continue to bring to its visitors those moments when reality and fiction amalgamate and improve the quality of life for everyone
