Palacio de Rubalcava

Monuments

The Palace of the Marquises of Ruvalcaba, or Ruvalcaba Palace, is an Oriolan palace that was formerly owned by the Sagredo Bassieres and Heredia Marquises de Ruvalcaba family. In the 1980s it was acquired by the municipality of Orihuela, the current owner, as a place for large receptions in the city. At present it is closed to visitors. The Palace was built by the 1930s, on the site that was left after the Abacial House of the Church of Santiago collapsed. It belonged to the family of the Marquis of Rubalcava, constituting this his residence. It was acquired by the Hon. Orihuela City Council in 1981, with the aim of conserving and being able to offer the public its interior and to give it a social and cultural use. In 1981 the municipal office of tourism was installed there, occupying it until nowadays. However, this has not been the only use it has had since in 1982 the Association of Moors and Christians Festivities "Santas Justa y Rufina" used part of its ground floor as its headquarters; in 1986 it became the Archaeological Museum and in 1990 it was used as the headquarters of the Municipal Department of Social Services. The Rubalcava Palace was included in its day in the "Provisional Guide of Architecture of Orihuela" due to its evident architectural interest, edited by the Historical Archive Commission of the College of Architects of Alicante. At the moment it appears in the Catalog of the Special Plan of Protection of the Historical Helmet of Orihuela. The building consists of three main floors with small mezzanines. At first the ground floor was used as an office, home of the landlords and garages. The first floor, which is the main area of ​​the palace, is occupied by a series of ostentatious rooms. Also in it was the main kitchen. On the second floor were the bedrooms of the marquesal family and on a mezzanine floor a second kitchen. Apart the palace consists of gardens with an iron gate on masonry walls. These walls contribute to isolate the building from the outside, while providing recreational areas, with fountains and benches of tiles and wrought iron. The building was built imitating the scheme of the baroque Oriolan palaces. The scheme that followed the Ruvalcaba palace of said Oriolan palaces is to have a hallway illuminated by a Neo-Baroque dome with an elliptical plan and access to the main floor by means of a marble staircase with Valencian tile base.