Colón square is a public space in Madrid, Community of Madrid, Spain, where streets such as Goya, Génova and the Paseo de la Castellana and Recoletos converge.
Description
It is named after Christopher Columbus. It is bordered by the streets of Serrano, Goya, Jorge Juan, and the Paseo de Recoletos and La Castellana, joining the latter two with the Calle de Génova. It houses a neo-Gothic monument to Christopher Columbus, erected between 1881 and 1885. It consists of a square base with reliefs and an octagonal pillar carved in stone by Arturo Mélida y Alinari, and a three-meter-high statue sculpted in white Italian marble by Jerónimo Miguel Suñol y Pujol. The total height is 17 meters. In the square, the architect Antonio Palacios Ramilo placed his monumental project for the “Palace of the Arts Project” in 1926. The project was ultimately not carried out.
Since 1970, a large open space has been located on the eastern side of the square, known as the Jardines del Descubrimiento (Discovery Gardens), which houses the Teatro Fernán Gómez art centre, the former Cultural Centre of the City of Madrid, built on the site previously occupied by the Royal Mint.
In 1977, the monument to the Discovery of America, made by Joaquín Vaquero Turcios, was installed in the gardens. It is a set of three concrete macro-sculptures, called respectively The Prophecies, The Genesis and The Discovery, with reliefs and inscriptions.
Since Spain’s national holiday in 2001, the largest Spanish flag in the world has flown in the Plaza de Colón, measuring 14 m x 21 m (294 m²), on a 50 m high flagpole.
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