Portal:Astyria/Article
The Puerta de la Compañía (English: Gate of the Company) is a Neo-classical monument and gate in the city of Monsa. Built between 1596 and 1604 in honour of the South Seas Company by the Prince Carlos IV of Monsa, it has transformed into an icon of the city.
The gate is the result of a series of similar structures that were built at different periods. Until 1594, the gate was called Puerta de Zabala and it was going to be with the gate built in 1604 when its name changed and had a similar appearence to today's gate. It was commissioned to be emerged years after the creation of the South Seas Company by the Prince Carlos IV of the principality and the architect in charge of the work was Gerardo del Henar, whose others works in the city contemplated the General Archives and several squares during a period of important changes in the urban design of Monsa. The gate substituted a previous one that existed in the same place as part of the walls that surrounded Monsa and whose gates marked the entrance to the city from the south. Although when it was completed the gate remained one of the entrances to the city, the work was one of the initial phases of the first enlargement of the grid of Monsa, which continued during the next century with the construction of several palaces in the neighbourhood of Conquistadores. However, the gate resulted severely damaged during conflicts and the Exponential invasion of the principality. Because of to this, it was going to be in 1681 when the Prince Fernando III commissioned the reconstruction of the gate on its actual form to the architect José de Alcobenda Bueno.
The structure was conceived following a Neo-classical architectural style and emulating similar triumphal arches in other Astyrian capitals. With the tearing down of the walls surrounding Monsa, the area surrounding the gate was named Plaza de la Compañía (Square of the Company), with the gate forming one of the principal axes of the city and being transformed into part of a roundabout, which connects the Conquistadores Boulevard with the Avenida del Sitio and the Francisco Ruiz de Áravo St.
With the consolidation of the enlarged city, during the start of the 19th century, the gate started getting an important status among the Monsan population and tourists that arrived to the city. It was going to be in 1964, when it was named a Construcción de Interés Cultural by the Council of Government. (See more...)