Plaza de los Fueros

Plaza de los Fueros (in Basque)
"Plaza de los Fueros" of Vitoria-Gasteiz

The Plaza de los Fueros is a plaza or square located in the city centre of Vitoria-Gasteiz, which is the capital of the Basque Country, Spain. It was built in 1979 in memory of the county code of laws named fuero in Spanish.

The Plaza de los Fueros was built in 1979 by Eduardo Chillida and Luis Peña Ganchegui, substituting the Plaza de Abastos previously located in the same place, a place where all kind of fresh products were sold.

In 1878 an architect proposed a new project to build a public Plaza de Abastos, where all te citizens from Vitoria-Gasteiz could buy fresh food due to the bad condition of the stalls where those products where sold. The city commission of the public work accepted the idea and decided that the plaza would be built in the location where nowadays we can find the Plaza de los Fueros.

Nevertheless, most of the local merchants started to complain against the new square, because of the loss that it would imply for their business. Due to that fact, the project was rejected for several years until 1897, when the mayor of Vitoria at that moment, Vicente González de Echavarri, finally approved the proposal. The city architect, Javier Aguirre, elaborated a project for the plaza which included a square with a big modern building in the centre. The style of the building was avant-garde and modernist, with an iron structure and large windows. The project of the building was presented to the citizens in order to have their opinion. Though they disliked the idea, the city council decided to continue with the project.

Finally, the Plaza de Abastos was finished in 1899, while the new mayor of Vitoria-Gasteiz was Federico Baráibar. That plaza was only there for 76 years, and in January 1975, it was the last time it opened. Although the new project was not correctly seen by most of the citizens, the city council decided to demolish the building in order to construct a different plaza; the Plaza de Abastos was moved to the new Plaza de Santa Bárbara, where it is nowadays located.

After that, in 1976 it was decided that the Plaza de los Fueros would replace the Plaza de los Abastos, and it was finished and opened in 1979. However, the square has suffered many changes since that year, due to the accidents that have occurred since then. There have been changes in order to make the plaza safer, but those changes have not changed the aesthetics of the Plaza de los Fueros.