The piece of the month of August 2011

"OFFICIAL CEREMONY OF THE LAYING OF THE FIRST STONE OF THE PALACE OF THE AUDIENCE OF PAMPLONA ON 13 JULY 1890", BY AGUSTÍN ZARAGÜETA COLMENARES (MUSEUM OF NAVARRA)
 

Esther Elizalde Marquina
Chair de Patrimonio y Arte Navarro
 

Agustín Zaragüeta Colmenares (San Sebastián, 29/8/1859 - Pamplona, 6/7/1929) devoted his life to photography, an extensive degree program which he developed from 1879 to the early 1920s. It was in Paris where he learnt his official document with Leopoldo Ducloux, a photographer of French origin with whom he formed a partnership. He later settled in Pamplona and opened his studio "Zaragüeta Fotógrafos" in an attic at place del Castillo in 1885. His arrival in the capital of Navarre may have been due both to his family ties with the city, as it seems that José Javier de Colmenares y Vidarte, mayor of Pamplona on three occasions (1872-1873, 1874-1877 and 1881-1883), was a close relative, and to his father's business relations with a Pamplona flour mill business . When he retired, it was his son Gerardo Zaragüeta Zabalo, who, after years of work at his side, took over position and ran the business until 1960. 

Agustín Zaragüeta, who specialised in studio portraits of high society figures taken in natural light, without spotlights, achieved a certain popularity for his photographs of the class military. His work was acquired together with that of his son by the Museum of Navarre in 1935. In total, the Collection has 4,838 items, most of which belong to Gerardo Zaragüeta Zabalo, as those attributable to his father Agustín Zaragüeta Colmenares do not exceed 40. The latter include his work as a photographer and photojournalist.

It is this aspect that is evident in the photograph presented. Taken outdoors, it shows sample the laying of the first stone of the Pamplona Court Palace on the 13th of July 1890, the Palace of Justice until 1996 and, since 2002, the seat of the Parliament of Navarre. issue This event, as can be seen in the image, attracted a large crowd of curious people from Pamplona on a hot day during the Sanfermines. By that time, several places had been built to accommodate those present around the crane from which the great ashlar, the main feature of the event, hung, located in the same place where the Palacio de la Audiencia would later be built. In this way, we can see a kind of platform or stage for the locals, a bandstand to house the orchestra and, finally, a colourful pavilion, measuring some 25 metres in front by 8 metres in depth, the work of the industrialist Santiago Martinicorena. The grandstand was decorated with the national colours, the flags and coats of arms of Navarre and Merindades, with the upper part of the front of the pavilion standing out, where a crest similar to the one that was to crown the façade of the Palace of Justice had been used, with the representation of Prudence and Justice standing out. According to the press at the time, the balustrade showed the plans of project drawn up by the municipal architect.

Likewise, in front of the tribune, the place assigned to the most distinguished members of Pamplona society, was the crane from which hung the large ashlar stone, with which the work was to be blessed. Twelve satin ribbons had also been tied to the same ring from which the stone hung, which were to be held by the first authorities when the time came to place the stone in the corner where the streets of Navas de Tolosa and Yanguas y Miranda were supposed to meet. 

As the local newspapers report, after the arrival of the procession led by the Mayor Fausto Elío y Mencos and preceded by the giants and big-heads, as in any self-respecting act in Pamplona, the stone was blessed and the notary signed the certificate , which was placed in a lead box together with a copy of the newspapers of the day, as well as gold, silver and copper coins of the last minting. This was followed by the laying of the stone and a banquet in his honour.
 

Official ceremony of the laying of the first stone of the Palacio de la Audiencia in Pamplona on 13 July 1890 (Museum of Navarre).
Gelatin and silver bromide / glass plate. 29.27 x 24 cm.
Inventory 3.151 (C.1, 15)

 

The laying of the first stone of the new Court Palace in Pamplona's Primer Ensanche, i.e. the construction of a new building to house this function in the capital of Navarre, is due to the semi-ruinous state of the previous one, located at the current place de San Francisco, and to the campaign promoted by the President of the Supreme Court in 1882, the Navarrese Eduardo Alonso Colmenares, to build modern Courthouses. 

By the law of 22 August 1888, the War Department had granted the interior glacis of the Citadel, after mutilating two of the bastions of the fortress, those of La Victoria and San Antón, for the construction of the First Extension of Pamplona. Thus, in the background of the image, the Citadel guardhouse can be seen, once the aforementioned bastions had been removed (1889), with traces of the works begun, as well as the layout of the future Avenida del Ejército (Army Avenue).
This intramural widening consisted of the coexistence of two areas, one civilian and the other military, separated longitudinally by a road that left the military buildings connected to the fortified part and the civilian buildings with the population located in the glacis area. 

The image in question shows the solemn ceremony inaugurating the start of work on the only official building erected in the civilian part of the Primer Ensanche, as most of the blocks in this area were devoted to private dwellings. Thus, the Palacio de la Audiencia was located in the irregular block E, the one with the highest urban category as it was situated at one end of the Paseo de Sarasate or Paseo de Valencia, directly facing the Palacio Provincial and at the beginning of the most important streets of the Ensanche: Calle Navas de Tolosa and Calle Yanguas y Miranda. Furthermore, its rear façade faced the road that separated the civilian part from the military part, i.e. the current Calle Padre Moret. 

Initially, the architect Ángel Goicoechea made several sketches for the palace in 1888, based on the plans of Blas Iranzo, the previous municipal architect, but Pamplona City Council finally decided to entrust project to its municipal architect Julián Arteaga, who presented it in 1890. Construction began in 1891, but was not without its problems, as it was halted that same year due to the impediments of the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts, which demanded several corrections to the project. Finally, work was resumed in 1894 and completed in 1897. 

Thus, the Palacio de la Audiencia or Palace of Justice is organised on a trapezoidal plot and has three floors, one leave and two storeys, plus the basement. It has two central courtyards, a large one and a smaller triangular one, which constitute the internal nuclei around which the rooms are arranged. 

On the outside, it has four façades of different sizes characterised by the harmonious distribution of the windows, by the combination of the red tone of the brick and the ochre of the Tafalla stone and by the diversity of the frames of the openings, which reflect their place in the masonry and their orientation. As a whole, it achieves unity in variety. 

The main façade opens onto the Paseo de Valencia, opposite the Monument to the Fueros and the Palace of the Government of Navarre. It has a central body enhanced by its projection and the employment of stone as the only material. On the ground floor leave sample is a cushioned ashlar and in the centre the entrance door opens in the form of a triumphal arch. The first floor, made of smoother stone, is formed by a trio of lintelled windows with stone balustrade parapets, separated by classical pilasters; above them a fragment of entablature and coats of arms of Spain, Navarre and Pamplona. An impost line separates it from the top floor, which follows the rhythm of the previous one. The main façade is crowned by a highly decorated eave and, above it, the statues of the Law and Justice, just as they were on the stage at the inauguration of the works in 1890. The rest of the main façade, set back from the central façade, has a stone plinth, while the walls are of red brick, and the separation between the different floors is made by means of a stone moulded fascia. In final, a purely classicist aesthetic language that contrasts with the one used in the secondary fronts, which is closer to Eclecticism.
On the outside of the building as a whole, the openings are the fundamental elements, distributed rhythmically and symmetrically on all the floors. The horizontality and monotony of the façades are broken by the use of vertical pilasters that fragment the façades and a diversity of materials that give the building a lively polychromy. 

In the 21st century, an interior refurbishment was carried out to house the current seat of the Parliament of Navarre by the architects Juan Miguel Otxotorena Elicegui, Mariano González Resencio, Javier Pérez Herreras and José Vicente Valdenebro in 2002.

SOURCES AND bibliography
file MUNICIPAL DE PAMPLONA, El Tradicionalista, 15 July 1890, pp. 2-3.
Arrieta Elías, I., guide de arquitectura de Pamplona y su comarca, Pamplona, high school Oficial de Arquitectos Vasco-Navarro, 2006, pp. 84-85.
Larumbe Martín, M., El Academicismo y la Arquitectura del siglo XIX en Navarra, Pamplona, Gobierno de Navarra, 1990, pp. 594-598.
Orbe Sivatte, A. Arquitectura y Urbanismo en Pamplona a finales del Siglo XIX y comienzos del XX, Pamplona, Gobierno de Navarra, 1985, pp. 119-136.