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TURÓ DE LA SEU VELLA CONGRESS
March 18, 19 and 20, 2026
If you are a scholar of the Seu Vella, and you want to present your communication proposal,
Find out about the rules for presenting communications here. You have until December 31st!
If you are a scholar of the Seu Vella, and you want to present your communication proposal,
Find out about the rules for presenting communications here. You have until December 31st!
PRESENTATION
In 1991, Lleida hosted a pioneering congress on the Seu Vella, which marked a turning point in the research and management of the monument. That meeting gave rise to new perspectives and strategies that have been fundamental in recent decades.
Since then, the monument has been the subject of multiple scientific meetings focused on specific aspects. For example, the Càtedra del Turó de la Seu Vella organized the Porta dels Apòstols de la Seu Vella Symposium, on 16 and 17 November 2022, which focused on the architecture, iconography, sculpture and the restoration process of the Porta dels Apòstols. The symposium “Valorization of heritage through information and communication technologies”, which took place on November 29, 2024, also approached the monument from the scope of new technologies applied to the dissemination, interpretation and interaction with heritage.
Thirty-five years after the 1991 congress, the momentum of that event has come to be consolidated but also reveals the need to overcome partial views. The 2026 Turó de la Seu Vella Congress aims to be this new milestone: a space for debate and collective reflection that allows the monument as a whole to be reconsidered in all its breadth and complexity. The Turó must be understood as a comprehensive heritage landscape, in which history, architecture, urban life and collective memory come together.
The change of name is not accidental. While the 1991 congress was mainly dedicated to the cathedral —although it also included other approaches—, the 2026 congress emphasizes the Hill’s globality: the church, but also the king’s castle, the walls and bastions, the ice wells and all the dimensions that make up this exceptional heritage landscape.
The aim is to approach the Hill from diverse and complementary perspectives, which include both historical-artistic and archaeological study as well as the perspectives of heritage management, interdisciplinary research, teaching, tourism, technologies and the relationship with the city and today’s society.
With the participation of top-level researchers and professionals, this congress is presented as an opportunity to project the future of the Hill of La Seu Vella and reinforce its role as a symbol of identity, research space and heritage of reference.
OBJECTIVES
Improve knowledge about the monument, integrating new research and contributions from different fields.
Open a space for dialogue and interdisciplinary research on the Turó de la Seu Vella.
Promote a comprehensive vision that includes not only the historical and artistic field, but also management, teaching, tourism, archaeology, museumization and the relationship with the city and contemporary society.
Projecting the future of the Turó and reinforcing its role as a heritage and identity reference for Lleida and Catalonia as a whole.
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Registration is free.
MAIN SPEAKERS
Eduardo Carrero Santamaría
Autonomous University of Barcelona
"The cathedral, from a paradigm building to a historiographical category"
Inaugural presentation, March 18
Francesc Fité Llevot
University of Lleida
"La Seu Vella: historiography and lines of research begun since 1991"
Main paper, March 19
Cristina Yáñez
de Aldecoa
University of Andorra
"The heartbeat of heritage: learning from the past to transform the present"
Main paper, March 20
Joan Reguant Aleix
Consultant in cultural heritage
"Heritage, with P for future"
Closing Presentation, March 20
MAIN SPEAKERS
Eduardo Carrero Santamaría
Autonomous University of Barcelona
"The cathedral, from a paradigm building to a historiographical category"
Inaugural presentation, March 18
Francesc Fité Llevot
University of Lleida
"La Seu Vella: historiography and lines of research begun since 1991"
Main paper, March 19
Cristina Yáñez
de Aldecoa
University of Andorra
"The heartbeat of heritage: learning from the past to transform the present"
Main paper, March 20
Alicia Castillo Mena
Complutense University of Madrid
"Participation or listening: challenges for World Heritage."
Closing conference, March 20
EXHIBITION
El cos en trànsit. Cartografies sensibles del patrimoni
by Mariona Roure
Inauguration Tuesday, March 17 at 4:30 p.m. at the Revellí de la Mitja Lluna (Seu Vella de Lleida)
Heritage is not just what we preserve from the past. It is also a living space that is transformed through the experiences, gazes and memories of citizens.
El cos en trànsit is a research and creation project that explores the relationships between body, heritage, memory and city through photography. The proposal is based on the need to rethink heritage from a contemporary perspective, overcoming visions that understand it as a fixed or disconnected element of social life. From this perspective, these spaces are understood as living and dynamic realities, open to new interpretations and meanings.
The project is developed through a series of photographic interventions carried out in different heritage spaces in the city of Lleida. In these settings, the bodies of the dancers enter into dialogue with architecture, the urban landscape and other forms of heritage, historical, symbolic or everyday, generating new ways of looking at and interpreting the places we inhabit.
Through movement and bodily presence, the images propose a sensitive reading of heritage and invite reflection on the relationship between space, identity and collective memory. The body thus becomes a mediator between past and present, capable of activating processes of resignification of spaces and opening new narratives about the city.
The photographs of the project bring together images captured in various heritage spaces in Lleida and are presented in this exhibition on the Turó de la Seu Vella, one of the main symbols of the city’s collective memory. From this emblematic space, the installation invites citizens to rediscover heritage from a contemporary perspective and to strengthen the link between monument, city and community.
Organitzation
Direction
Guillem Roca Cabau
Technical Secretary
Mariona Roure Blàvia
Organizing Committee
Clara Arbués Garcia, Joan Baigol Guilanyà, Joan J. Busqueta Riu, Francesc Fité Llevot, Joan Ramon González Pérez, Daniel Gutiérrez-Ujaque, Núria Piqué, Josep Tort i Bardolet, Ramon Solé Urgellés, Albert Velasco Gonzàlez
Scientific Committee
Comitè científic de la Càtedra Turó de la Seu Vella
ACTIVITIES
Parallel activities to the Congress.
Here you can consult the activities that we have organized outside the strictly academic field. We hope that they are of interest to you.
