Old La Esperanza flour factory, in Alcalá de Henares
Asset of Cultural Interest in the category of Industrial Interest
The old La Esperanza flour factory
The millhouse of the old La Esperanza flour factory, in Alcalá de Henares (Madrid), is one of the first examples of electric flour mills in the area that preserves the original production spaces and machinery practically intact. The latter dates from 1916, when manufacturing activity began and has one of the few sets of first-generation mechanical flour mills preserved today.
It constitutes a material vestige of the incipient industrialization of the city of Alcalá, in which the flour industry played an important role. That is why it has been declared an Asset of Cultural Interest in the category of Industrial Interest.
factory origin
Its origin dates back to the transformation initiated at mid XNUMXth century in the
flour industry, when the use of hydraulic energy in mills formed by mill wheels was progressively replaced by the Austro-Hungarian system with cylinder mills that worked by electrical energy.
Gradually, the Austro-Hungarian mechanized flour grinding and refining system was implemented, widely disseminated by the Swiss company Daverio.
In this way, for the location of the flour complexes it would no longer be decisive
the presence of a river bed, being able to locate the factories close to railway facilities, in the urban periphery, which would promote an adequate transport and distribution network of the product.
La Esperanza Flour Factory was founded in 1916 by Sergio Real, who commissioned
the property to the Madrid builder Martín Lago Pérez. The factory started with a staff of six employees and soon after the flour mill was fully electrified, reaching 30 kg of daily production in the 22.000s, with a storage capacity of 1,5 million kg.
The factory would continue its operation in the hands of the descendants of Sergio
Real until the 70s, when it was acquired by various individuals, definitively ceasing its operation in the 80s. Already under municipal ownership, a rehabilitation project was drawn up in 1990 to convert the old factory into an educational complex.
The original construction project provided for the creation of a factory, a warehouse and a home:
- The location of that first dwelling Contemplated in the initial project corresponds to the space of the property that currently houses the concierge of the Official School of Languages, and therefore it is currently missing. At the beginning of 1917 Sergio Real bought another plot that allowed him to expand the complex. Until 1919 various works would take place in which a silo, garages, new warehouses were built and, a decade later, the family home that is preserved today.
- Among these acquisitions, the building of the old Complutense Power Station stands out, which would be used as a store (which is preserved today) and which would allow all the constructions of the factory to be organized around a large operating yard located in the free space between the power plant and the mill building.
- La old millhouse or main building, is the place where the entire production process was carried out. It is a Neo-Mudejar style building with a rectangular floor plan, which preserves all the machinery, a gabled roof with gables; floors, roof structure, stairs and pipes, all made of well-preserved hardwood; original carpentry of doors and windows.
The main building or mill building is the one that has obtained the declaration of Asset of Cultural Interest; Although both the house and the warehouse are included in the protection of their environment.
The original machinery of the factory
The factory is an example of the transformation that began in the mid-nineteenth century in the industry
flour mill, when it went from the use of hydraulic energy in mills
formed by mill wheels to the Austro-Hungarian system composed of cylinder mills
electrified. This new methodology provided a whiter and finer flour, and with better conservation conditions by eliminating the germ.
The manufacturing typology of electroflour mills is characterized by a vertical development in the manner of Manchester factories, with a plant of rectangular proportion and crowned by a gabled roof, distributing the production phases at different heights.
The machinery is preserved inside in its original position, thus also conserving the configuration of spaces and circulations. Much of the machinery, such as mechanical mills
and the double plansichters date from the founding days of the factory, are preserved in
good condition and are an exceptional witness to the Austro-Hungarian manufacturing system of the early XNUMXth century.
All the machinery and technical elements illustrate a milling and supply system
already defunct energy that set the standard in the development of the flour industry.
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