Water takes centre stage at the Royal Palace of La Granja de San Ildefonso in Spain. Today, National Photography Prize winner Javier Vallhonrat, the palace’s Royal Plumber Luis Vallejo, and Ana Jiménez, Innovation Manager at ACCIONA, come together to uncover its mysteries in a contemplative documentary produced by ACCIONA in collaboration with PhotoESPAÑA and National Heritage. See it for yourself.
Capturing the fleeting moment, preserving a fragment of the present—barely brushing the surface of things—has long been the calling of art and the essence of memory. And what could be more elusive than the play of light upon water? Its final gleam in a downstream cascade, the curve of a fading wave, or the still surface of a reflecting pool. This pursuit, echoed by generations of artists from Turner to Sorolla, is what has occupied photographer Javier Vallhonrat—winner of the National Photography Prize—in his project Fieldnotes. A collaboration between ACCIONA, PHotoESPAÑA and Patrimonio Nacional (National Heritage), it unfolds at the Royal Site of La Granja.
And that is the starting point for our documentary: The Wonders of Water.
Guided by Vallhonrat, we travel to La Granja, a marvel of hydraulic engineering and a space where nature and human ingenuity converge. There we encounter a centuries-old legacy— and a simple man, brimming with authenticity who tends, with his own hands, what the photographer captures with his lens. His name is Luis Vallejo, and he is the son and nephew of those who have long watched over the waters that course through this monumental landscape.
But this story has a third voice: that of Ana Jiménez, Director of Water Innovation Management at ACCIONA. She speaks to us of the intelligence and technology that make it possible to deliver water—a fundamental right still denied to many. Drawing connections between the centuries-old water systems at La Granja and today’s most advanced solutions, she reminds us of the value of making every drop count.
Water and light may be fleeting, but this film seeks to hold onto something of what its protagonists have seen and felt. That is the purpose of The Wonders of Water, a gentle, three-part journey that invites reflection—and which we invite you to experience here.
Water and light may be fleeting, but this film seeks to hold onto something of what its protagonists have seen and felt. That’s what The Wonders of Water is about — a delicate three-part documentary created by ACCIONA in collaboration with PHotoESPAÑA and Patrimonio Nacional, and produced by Dadá Films, which we invite you to enjoy in this feature.
Javier Vallhonrat is a celebrated photographer, but he lives far from the spotlight. His world is the chiaroscuro of the Benasque mountains, in the Spanish province of Huesca. There, carrying a heavy large-format camera and tripod, he moves through the forest—his own “cathedral crowned by a vault of trees,” as he describes it—hunting for fleeting moments.
The challenge that brought him to La Granja was to capture the tension between the brilliance of the surface and the transparency of water—to pause what is always changing, through the paradox of a photograph. The Wonders of Water lets us see him in his natural element, both at work and at home, and hear the quiet reflections that illuminate his gaze.
Luis Vallejo, the Royal Plumber of the fountains at La Granja, describes himself modestly as “a plumber who got a bit lucky.” Perhaps it runs in the family: his uncle, also a caretaker of these hydraulic wonders, was named Modesto. But make no mistake—no one knows these systems better than Luis, who understands how water flows from the Guadarrama Mountains to each fountain and irrigation channel in the palace gardens.
It was Philip V who fell in love with this pure mountain water and built a palace to honour it. A single pipe still bears the name of the Vallejo family—a testament to their long-standing custodianship of this intricate network that powers fountains like that of Diana. But we will not go into any more detail; we'd rather you discover it for yourself, as it's one of the most moving stories in the documentary.
In this episode, Luis tells us how Vallhonrat has taught him to see again the places so many have walked through, to notice not just what’s there—but what it means. He says the photographer has managed to capture “the scent of moisture and calm”, to find, ultimately, “the spirit of water.”
Her children say she "cleans water". They are not far off the mark, but Ana Jiménez’s role is broader: she works to ensure that clean water reaches those who need it—and to transfer the technology and knowledge that make it possible.
In this documentary, she is, in a way, the one who thinks water. She speaks passionately about reverse osmosis systems for desalination, about adsorbents that remove emerging pollutants, and about virtual sensors designed to detect those same harmful substances. But she also looks back, noting that the hydraulic pipes at the Royal Site of La Granja are a model of sustainability: they have relied on the same materials for three centuries, without motors or any external energy.
That, she explains, is the essence of innovation: learning not just from today’s cutting-edge, but from the elegant solutions of the past—and from nature itself. Life without water is unthinkable. At ACCIONA, we are committed to making every drop count, just as generations have done in the gardens of the Royal Site of La Granja de San Ildefonso, a place of history, memory and enduring ingenuity.
After more than 80 years of history, we embarked on a new journey two decades ago: the ACCIONA brand was born, championing a visionary approach to sustainability long before it was a mainstream topic. Today, we continue to lead the charge towards a sustainable future, proving that business can be done differently.
