Old City (Montevideo)

Ciudad Vieja is a neighborhood of Montevideo (Uruguay) that corresponds to the old town of the city. It is home to numerous businesses, state offices, banks, museums, art galleries and cultural centers, as well as restaurants, nightclubs, and bars.

History

Until 1829 it was surrounded by a wall that protected the city from possible invasions, a structure that does not exist today, which nevertheless preserves one of the most emblematic parts, the Gate of the Citadel, which still stands. It is the emblem of the old fortified Montevideo and was built from 1742 and finished being rebuilt in 2009.

Today, located on one side of Plaza Independencia, it marks the beginning of the Sarandí pedestrian street, which leads to the center of the Old City.

Some streets in the neighborhood recall the presence of the wall, such as Ciudadela Street or Brecha Street. The latter takes its name from the fact that it is located at the point where the English managed to open the wall during the capture of the city in the English invasion of 1807.

The old Sarandí street was transformed into a pedestrian street in 1992, which increased its characteristics as a commercial and promenade area. In 2005 it was extended beyond the Plaza Matriz.

Architecture

In the Old City there are numerous constructions from the colonial era or from the first decades of independence of great architectural value. The Cabildo of Montevideo (built between 1804 and 1812), the Solís 1856 Theater, and the Mother Church stand out. The neighborhood also has several museums, including the Torres García Museum, the Gurvich Museum, the Figari Museum, the MAPI - Museum of Pre-Columbian and Indigenous Art and the Museum of Decorative Arts (installed in the Taranco Palace).

The National Historical Museum includes in the Old City the Romantic Museum in the house of Antonio Montero and the houses of Manuel Ximénez y Gómez, Fructuoso Rivera, Juan Antonio Lavalleja, Juan Francisco Giró and Giuseppe Garibaldi. We can also find in this neighborhood the plot where José Gervasio Artigas, a hero of the Eastern Republic of Uruguay, was born in 1764.

Urbanism

La Rambla de Montevideo was conceived here as a fast circulation route, to facilitate extensive transportation to and from the Port of Montevideo.

It houses the Plaza Matriz and Plaza Zabala. The first was the Plaza Mayor of the Ciudad Fortaleza and for decades, the only open public space conceived as such. The Cabildo and the Metropolitan Cathedral are located there.

The second is named in honor of Bruno Mauricio de Zabala, founder of the city, and is characterized by its oblique layout in the perfect checkerboard of the neighborhood. There are the Taranco Palace and the house of M. Sáenz de Zumarán (today the headquarters of the Discount Bank).

Other places of interest

Ciudad Vieja is home to several of the main museums in Montevideo, including the Torres García, the Gurvich, the Figari, the Pre-Columbian and Indigenous Art Museum, the Decorative Arts Museum and the Carnival Museum.

At the same time, at one end is the traditional Solís Theater. In the other, there is the Sarandí Jetty, which marks the entrance to Montevideo Bay. On its northern coast is the Port of Montevideo, in whose vicinity is the Mercado del Puerto.

For its part, on its southern side is the beginning of the city's Rambla, which in this area is divided into the France and Roosevelt sectors. In the area of the Rambla de Great Britain are the Plazas de España and the Argentine Republic.

Seismicity

The region responds to the "Punta del Este fault", and the "Río de la Plata sub-Fault"; with low seismicity; and its last expression occurred on June 5, 1888 (135 years old), at 3:20 UTC-3, with a magnitude of 5.5 on the Richter scale. (Río de la Plata earthquake of 1888).