It is one of the most famous squares of Cordova. nerve center of the city, meeting place and meetingsof talks, coffee and ice cream, in Las Tendillas there have been ascents of theCórdoba CFconcerts or welcomed the New Year, among many other events. There is no doubt that the Plaza de Las Tendillas is one of the most emblematic points of the city and a reflection of its evolution. Nearly turn a centurywe tell you his story through five facts that tell us about their past, legends and hidden stories.
The market square
Although it is true that the layout of the square is one of the 20s of the last centuryspecifically his reform began in 1923 and it ended in 1927, although since 1924 you could walk through it, the truth is that Its origins are much earlier. It’s time to go back to XV century, when the commanders of the Order of Calatrava, who had helped in the Reconquest of the city, the space was given to them. This It had different stores or stalls, where different products were sold. This gave rise to his first name: marketplacealthough very soon it would begin to be known among the people of Córdoba as Las Tendillas, due to the aforementioned stalls.
Image of the Plaza de Las Tendillas before the reform.
The controversy with the statue
Without a doubt, one of the main elements of the Plaza de Las Tendillas is its statue. Located in the center and surrounded by a fountain, it represents a horse Gonzalo Fernández de Córdobabetter known as the Great Captain. It dates back to 1923 and is a work of Mateo Inurria, to whom the City Council commissioned this work for 100,000 pesetas. Its location has not been without controversy, since in the first instance it was located in the avenue dedicated to the military. Was moved in 1927 to its current location, although with a strong opposition local. So much so that in 1999, when the square was pedestrianized, the debate revived.
However, the element of the sculpture that attracts the most attention is, without a doubt, the face. Countless theories have circulated about him. The most popular points out that it is from the bullfighter Rafael Molina Sánchez Lizard, close friend of Inurria. However, the discovery of Inurria busts dedicated to the matador and their comparison with that of Las Tendillas denies this possibility. The artist simply wanted highlight the faceusing marble and not bronze, as in the rest of the work. In 2003, in accordance with the celebration of the 550th anniversary of the soldier’s birth, it underwent a thorough restoration when it was varnished.
The Swiss Hotel
The history of Las Tendillas cannot be understood without talking about the Hotel Suizo. Was built in the 18th centuryafter the demolition of the Calatrava houses, and became the first big hotel in the city, and an icon of it during the 19th century. Through its corridors they passed historical figures such as King Leopold II of Belgium, José Zorrilla or Francisco Pi y Margall, among many others. He had an imposing neoclassical façade and, of course, a luxurious interior. Its dimensions exceeded 2,000 square meters distributed over two floors and 75 rooms, in addition to several rooms with capacity for more than a hundred guests. Many of the events were also celebrated there. events of the elite of Cordoba.
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100 years since the demolition of the Swiss hotel of Las TendillasAJ Gonzalez
At the beginning of the 20th century it suffered a important expansion, at the same time that its decline began and urban pressures to demolish it grew. So much so that few years later it was expropriated, to end up being demolished in 1927. The objective was put an end to the bottleneck that the parador represented between the newly built Claudio Marcelo street and Gondomar. Its collapse ended up giving rise to the current layout of the square.
A lake below?
The Tendillas They are not without legends which, like all, have their part of truth. The most popular one points out that under the square there is a cave with a large lake. In 1981, the journalist Sebastián Cuevas set out to prove its existence. To do this, he went down to the basement of a house located on Juan de Mena Street, where he discovered the entrance to an aquifer. However, the matter was forgotten.
In 2010 the issue was brought up again when the official of the Provincial Council’s Culture area, Rafael González, claimed to have been in the aquifer years ago, which accessed through the Colomera palace. Six years later the building was sold and, during work to make a hotel in 2018, They found remains of an old hydraulic waterwheelwhich would not make sense if there was no water there.
The ‘tontódromo’ of Córdoba
In addition to the aforementioned name of Market Square, Las Tendillas has had different names. Between the 60s and 70s of the last century she came to be nicknamed ‘the tontodrome From Cordoba. This name referred to the fact that the square, next to Cruz Conde Street, was the place where the people of Cordoba went to walk, have a drink and show off in front of the neighbors. It has also been nicknamed the Plaza del Caballo, because of the sculpture.
Image of the Plaza de Las Tendillas.
Its name has varied throughout history, always subject to the political climate of the time. Plaza de Canalejas, Plaza Cánovas del Castillo, Plaza de la República and Plaza de José Antonio have been the names it has also had. However, it has never stopped being known as Las Tendilas.
