Plaza de la Montañeta

Streets - Outskirts

It is a rectangular square, with a central fountain also rectangular in shape, which is located in the center of the square, its design, and that of the buildings that surround it, is typical of the first Francoist period. There are the main administrative headquarters of the Government of Spain, such as the Government Subdelegation, the Provincial Office of the Tax Agency or the Provincial Delegation of the Ministry of Justice, where the former convent of San Francisco was located, whose church is currently the parish of Our Lady of Grace. The square owes its name to this place was the hill of San Francisco, popularly called "La Montañeta." This hill, which had a height of up to twenty meters and included mills and several towers raised during the War of Spanish Independence, was disassembled from 1931 to suppose a natural barrier that separated the historic center of the newly created expansion of the city.Initially, the construction of the square was projected during the Second Republic, but after the Civil War, it was entrusted the modification of the project to the new municipal architect, Félix de Azúa Gruat, who designed a closed quadrangular square without portico. However, the plaza did not finish closing on the southeast front, connecting, in this way, with the Puerta de San Francisco.In May 1949, the building of the Civil Government, current Sub-delegation of the Government, was inaugurated by Francisco Franco and, from then on, the plaza was renamed "del Caudillo". Finally, the plaza was emptied between 1970 and 1972 to create an underground garage that divides the public space into two parts.