It is the second most expensive monument in the city.

Some wooden columns and two doves joined by an olive branch. So simple and straightforward is explained how the municipal fault that 'looks' in the Town Hall Square of Valencia for these Fallas 2024. Gone are the years when the falla paid by the Consistory was the emblem of the city and the pride of a festival that, although it may not seem so, is a World Heritage Site. Now projects such as those carried out by Manolo García with the peculiar technique of the vareta, reaching up to 40 meters in height, are longed for. The most expensive municipal falla is bound to disappoint if Valencians and visitors create expectations based on the budget. 

No one can doubt the work of Pere Baenas, a master fallero who has won several first prizes in Special and who has shown that with creative freedom he is capable of making iconic fallas. Just look at his work on El Pilar and Convento Jerusalén. The debacle of the municipal falla began several years ago. After the 2015 elections nothing has been the same again in the Fallas.

Under the yoke of Compromís 

The Valencia City Council led by Compromís, and with the complicit and interested attitude of the PSPV-PSOE, changed the format by which the municipal falla was chosen. The councilors would no longer choose between the projects presented. The usual absolute majorities of the PP of Rita Barberá were staged in that the work voted by the popular was the one that was burned in the square on the night of March 19. 

The simple majority of Compromís in 2015 and before the hypothetical possibility that PSPV and PP would coincide to decide the municipal falla project, propitiated that the councilman Pere Fuset invented a totally controlled election process. True, the decision ceased to be of the politicians; from that moment on it was Fuset, and only Fuset, who would choose those who should determine the municipal fallas projects.

By 'chance', since that moment began to present recognized falleros artists of the hand of designers completely alien to the Valencian festival. The case of Okuda was the most famous. The pandemic left pending to see the fault of 'The meditator' designed by Escif, so the debt is settled in a peculiar way in these Fallas 2024, although in the City Council no longer rules the left.

Poisoned gift

At the end of April, about a month before the municipal elections, the group of 'experts' decided by Pere Fuset determined the ruling on the candidacies presented for the municipal fallas. Of the 'losing' projects no details are usually revealed, although it is known within the fallas world that some artists have recycled fallas that aspired to be municipal and have ended up in the streets of the city.

So the experts chosen by Fuset decided, with total freedom and without any political interference, that the municipal falla for 2024 would be the work of the master Pere Baenas with the design of Escif. As Compromís lost the elections, a situation that was already intuited at the time of choosing the winning project, the poisoned gift was served and prepared with very good taste. It is also true that it must be taken into account that the 'traditional' deadlines were met, since if they had waited for the constitution of the new Consistory and their respective councils, there would have been the situation of having arrived in September without a fallero artist, an unfeasible extreme for the contracting of a fallero monument.

Obviously won a style of failure that can only occur with a councilman of Compromís choosing one to one the jury. The excuse of the increased budget makes more if possible that the expectations collapse to see the work in the street. 

The most expensive and low fault

20 meters high, of the lowest municipal fallas, and a municipal budget amounting to 239,000 euros. If we look at the prices officially declared by each fallera commission (another thing is what is actually paid to the artist), the municipal falla that Fuset 'gave' to the PP is the second most expensive falla of all those that are planted in Valencia on the night of March 15 to 16. Only 6,000 euros of the most 'top': the 245,000 of Jerusalem Convent, which paradoxically performs the same artist, but with design of the legendary Alejandro Santaeulalia. Fuset already warned in April: "It does not mean that the falla has to be bigger, but that we improve the retribution of the falleros artists".

The explanation that could be used to try to understand the excessive budget for the work that comes out of the workshop is that the proportion of money shared between the designer and the fallero artist is unknown. In all of Valencia fallera it is the artisan who chooses the illustrator, either because he is part of his team or because of occasional collaborations. But in this case it is a joint proposal. In addition, as noted from the City of Valencia, the winning proposal has been made with "100% sustainable and environmentally friendly" materials.