Roof of Ricardo Bofill's abandoned social club in Calpe collapses after years of decay

The club is part of the La Manzanera development Bofill designed in the 1970s, next to his Muralla Roja and Xanadú apartment blocks, which are still standing and occupied. It was built as a seaside leisure venue with a restaurant, pools, terraces and a small harbor, and it has been empty since the 1980s, Euro Weekly News reported. A neighbor who has lived in Xanadú for 35 years said the collapse sounded like an earthquake, and that people were up on the roof on Halloween night, hours before it fell.

On Nov. 2 the town hall started an emergency contract to fence the perimeter and prop up the walls still standing, elperiodic.com reported. Police had already closed the building and the nearby cove.

Calpe has been asking for a concession on the site since 1997. A 2016 plan included a footbridge of about 100 meters to the cove. In 2021 the council dropped the footbridge and breakwater so the whole rehabilitation could be done on dry land, and asked the Ministry for Ecological Transition for the space for cultural, scientific and educational use. The building stands on protected maritime-terrestrial public land, and disputes with the ministry and coastal regulators about environmental limits and construction methods kept each plan from moving, according to Euro Weekly News. In 2023 the town's planning councillor at the time said Calpe had been waiting since early 2022 for an environmental sign-off from the regional government.

Mayor Ana Sala says the latest ministerial decision withdraws the town's concession and orders it to tear the building down and pay for the work itself, following an instruction from Spain's coastal directorate, the Dirección General de Costas. The town has appealed. Councillor Pedro Moll has suggested a museum of the sea with a café as one use.