Magical Town Puerto Balleto, Islas Marías, Mexico: Its Penitentiary Past Through Architectural and Urban Remains

Abstract

The study is aimed at the analysis of the architectural remains settled in the urban complex of the current Magical Town Puerto Balleto, Islas Marías, which testify in their architectural works a centennial penitentiary past of Federal Penal Colony (1905-2010), until becoming a Penitentiary Complex (2010-2019), the same buildings that are currently reused for tourism purposes (both in lodging, services, and urban and natural landscape). However, these architectures of Puerto Balleto have not yet been valued for their penitentiary past and are accredited as a built cultural heritage of the Federal Penal Colony Islas Marías and therefore, they could lose a sui generis testimony of the extinct island penal colonies of Latin America due to the way in which penitentiary treatment of women and men deprived of liberty is carried out in community-type spaces called "camps".The objective of the study is the assessment of the urban and architectural remains of Puerto Balleto, for their protection and conservation for present and future generations. For this purpose, the qualitative methodology of the descriptive method was used for the analysis of the architecture and urbanism of Puerto Balleto, based on the comparisons of its penitentiary past and its present as a magical town. The results show that the urban and architectural remains are part of the tourist resource, but at the same time, their assessment becomes a challenge for their protection and conservation that points out the built memory. It is concluded that there is little planning of the use of the territory for tourist purposes that concerns historical real estate, therefore, management strategies and plans are required for the protection and conservation of the penitentiary built cultural heritage for present and future generations.

Keywords:Urban and architectural permanence, history, penal colony, cultural resource