The design by Sebastián Arquitectos is characterized by an intelligent approach, utilizing limited resources and a great economy of resources, highlighted by a careful and attentive integration of details and elements that reference the site's history. These elements, along with the floors and gardens, are painted with a colour palette taken from the buildings surrounding the square. At night, the square is illuminated by lights installed under the bench seats.
The fountain, the benches and the pylon are decorated with the tiles of the eaves. To the north-east of the ground floor, a plaster pediment is installed, which at festival time is illuminated with the phrase "Vivan los Quintos" (A typical Spanish phrase in time of village festivities), using the typography that appeared on an old photograph of the village.
New square by Sebastián Arquitectos. Photograph by Iñaki Bergera.
Project description by Sebatián Arquitectos
The New Square of Montón was born as a donation of the wooded orchard of the kind José Franco Temprado in 1685 to celebrate, in honour of San Agustín, a bullfight with 5 bulls that were brought from Navarra.
The New Square of this small and beautiful village on the banks of the river Jiloca was a terrain in the midday sun where everything happened and will continue to happen. Markets, parties, dances, processions and conversations, pelota games, events that over two and a half centuries have shaped the history and community life of this small Aragonese town.
A plaster pediment, the pylon and the fountain, the arch support, the benches decorated with the tiles of the eaves, the shady pergolas, and of course its painted "Vivan los Quintos" crowning the scene, which we have rescued from an old photo now projected with light. We did not want to single out one year to be the year of all the Quintos.
The architecture of the public space is also shaped as the appropriate sum of small things, elements that fix the vernacular references that make up a place. The exceptional in the noble fact of everyday life. The beautiful in the everyday world.
