Its name comes from the small shops that were housed by the Order of Calatrava since the 14th century . The current dimensions of the square were given after the demolition of the Hotel Suizo in 1923, uniting the main commercial avenues such as Cruz Conde , Claudio Marcelo and Gondomar streets, and the construction of most of the current buildings occurred in that decade.
The square has hosted a Christmas market since 2014 and is famous for the celebration of the twelve grapes on New Year 's Eve following the "flamenco clock" in the square, which instead of chiming, strikes the hours with the sound of a guitar.
History
Origin and creation of the square
In the current Plaza de las Tendillas, around the 14th century , were the houses of the commanders of the Order of Calatrava , who had helped during the Conquest of Córdoba and were rewarded with this space, as well as different small shops, an area whose name soon derived in the Tendillas de Calatrava, name by which it has remained until today. The Calatrava houses were demolished in 1860 for the construction of the Hotel Suizo.
The first project for the expansion of the square was carried out on December 3, 1895 by Patricio de Bolomburu, although the economic problems of the Córdoba City Council caused another project to be carried out on May 15, 1907 by the same architect. On January 7, 1908, the expansion process of what was then called Plaza Cánovas del Castillo was approved., widening from east to west of the square, although the famous Swiss Hotel still had to be demolished, with dimensions of 2,000 square meters and 75 luxury rooms, run by the Puzzini brothers, from Switzerland. The negotiations took several years until the acquisition by the City Council after a payment of 565,000 pesetas in 1919, although the demolition did not take place until 1923. Finally, on July 24, 1925, the mayor José Cruz Conde presented the project for the new Plaza de Las Tendillas with a design and plans by the Barcelona architect Félix Hernández , for which reason practically all of the surrounding buildings began to be built, with the exception of the already existing Luis de Góngora Institute , at the same time as the construction of theCruz Conde street
Buildings and monument to the Great Captain
In 1926 the house of Marín Fernández was built in the modernist style on the corner of Gondomar street. Between that year and 1927 most of the surrounding buildings were built, including the La Unión y el Fénix building , the work of the architect Benjamín Gutiérrez Prieto ; the Telephone Central, the work of Ramón Aníbal Álvarez, and the Casa Colomera, the work of Félix Hernández. In 1928 the Enríquez Barrios House was completed, ordered to be built by this Cordovan mayor to the architect Aníbal González , who was building his famous Plaza de España in Seville at that time for the 1929 Ibero-American Exposition .
In addition to the buildings built at that time, the Monument to the Great Captain , made in 1923 by the artist Mateo Inurria and originally located on the avenue of the Great Captain , was moved in 1927 to the square despite the fact that this event had opposition neighborhood at first.
Clocks and New Year's Eve
In 1929, a clock was inaugurated at the corner of Jesús María and Málaga streets which, although it was privately owned, began to gather the people of Cordoba to eat the grapes on New Year's Eve . However, the November 1945 press parodies the malfunction of the clock, which was fixed by the City Council for New Year's Eve of that same year. 8 Finally, on January 29, 1961, the new clock was inaugurated, located on the corner with Gondomar street, an event that was broadcast on NO -DOto which thousands of people from Cordoba attended. The clock has the peculiarity that, instead of chiming, it strikes the quarters and hours with the sound of a guitar built by Manuel Reyes Maldonado and played by guitarist Juan Serrano to the rhythm of soleares . According to Francisco Solano Márquez, what has since been known as the “flamenco clock” was an idea of ??the Philips brand , while at 12:00 and 17:00 the voice of Matías Prats sounded announcing the clocks with the slogan “Better, better! there is no!". The old clock machinery was replaced in 1988 by a device with automated information such as an astronomical clock, connected via satellite, modernized again in the year 2000.
Pedestrianization
During the 1960s and 1970s this area, together with Cruz Conde, was known as the tontódromo , because it was a place to show off to the rest of Cordoba citizens. At the beginning of 1970, a U-shaped fountain was created around the Monument to the Great Captain, a project carried out by Carlos Font, whose perimeter was landscaped a decade later.
At the end of the 1990s, the almost total pedestrianization of the square was decided, in a project prepared by Gerardo Olivares from Ceuta that returned the Monument to the Great Captain to the avenue of the same name, and after criticism, it was moved inside the same square, although finally due to the protests it remained in the same place. The works had a budget of 260 million pesetas , of which 200 million would be paid by CajaSurafter an agreement with the City Council, which would pay the remaining 60 million. The works eliminated almost all road traffic, and also demolished the public toilets located in the basement of the old Swiss Hotel that were still in use, as well as replacing the 1970 fountain with another in black marble around the Monument to the Great Captain. Likewise, some flower beds with benches were created next to orange trees, and some dry springs or soil springs were created that were not planned, but were added at the request of the Deputy Mayor for Infrastructures Rafael Rivas, who had seen them in Las Rozas de Madrid . Finally, the new plaza was inaugurated on May 13, 1999 by Mayor Rafael Merino.
In the summer of 2018, some works were undertaken for two months to solve a small subsidence caused by a water leak in the central fountain.
Buildings
La Unión y el Fénix building
The La Unión y el Fénix building is the work of the architect Benjamín Gutiérrez Prieto , built between 1926 and 1927 by the homonymous insurance company , with the new construction given to the Plaza de las Tendillas. It is located in Plaza de las Tendillas, number 6. During the Civil War it housed one of the sirens that warned the population of the arrival of bombings.
Palacio Colomera
At one end of the enclosure stands out the Casa Colomera, an old four-story house at number 3 of the square. Made by the architect Félix Hernández Giménez in 1928 for the counts of Colomera . It is considered as a modernist symbiosis between a manor house in the first two floors being the second two floors of floors. After a long restoration process to house a four-star hotel, in whose works a medieval waterwheel was found that overlooks an aquifer , it was inaugurated on June 7, 2019 as the H10 Palacio Colomera hotel.
Luis de Góngora Institute
Casa Enríquez Barrios
The Enríquez Barrios house belonged to this Cordoba mayor and is an example of regionalism by the architects Aníbal González and Aurelio Gómez Millán carried out in 1928.
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