Cascante, a town council for the 21st century

Until the 16th century, the town hall was located in the neighborhood of Puerta leave, at one end of the town, far from the main place , which had become the nerve center of the town after the construction of the parish church. In 1587, due to space problems, it was decided to move the headquarters, and four houses were acquired for 652 escudos. Days later, on July 23, with Captain Ximeno Cunchillos as mayor, the auction of the candela was held according to the clauses, design and layout arranged by Pedro Berges and Diego Romeo.

The auction was attended by four workers from the town and was auctioned off for 2,000 ducats by Miguel de Múxica, a resident of Tudela, who established an agreement with Pedro Berges, a resident of Cascante, to carry out the work in equal parts. The contract clearly establishes the construction elements, materials and finishes. The interior layout of the building includes a conference room for the courthouse, a secret chamber, two jails -one of them for less dangerous prisoners- a granary and conference room leave .

The main facade was aligned with the church tower and consisted of leave and two elevated sections, with four linteled openings on each floor. On the first floor, balconies that open onto a terrace. In the second, four windows, one of which was later used to house the clock face whose bells were located in a belfry that rose above the roof. Two coats of arms of the city were incorporated, placed on both sides of the balcony located under the sphere of the aforementioned clock, made in 1597 and 1731, respectively.

After various administrative and economic problems, in January 1589 the work was finished, and the carpentry of the house was entrusted to Sebastián Gil, a resident of Tudela. However, at the beginning of June 1591, the town still owed him 300 ducats for the payment of the construction of the council house, so the town took a census of 400 ducats in order to pay off this debt.

In the following centuries the building of the town hall underwent successive interventions, in some cases as a result of the damages caused by war conflicts, such as the sacking by the troops of the pretender Charles of Austria in 1710, and in others on the occasion of royal visits, as that of the consort king Francisco de Asís de B, husband of Isabel II, in 1864, when the council house was decorated, showing all its splendor, for which repair works were undertaken in the staircase, the secret chamber was papered and damasks were placed on the stairs, garlands on the balconies and carpets in the corridors. In the plenary hall the canvases with the official portraits of the kings made by artists of the region were hung.

The reforms of the city hall during the second half of the 20th century included the addition of a body on the ground floor leave, creating a porch with arcades articulated by four semicircular arches built in brick. This element, characteristic in the structure of the municipal facades, contributes to expand the public space of the place where the building is located, offering shelter and protection to the citizens who approach it. Above the open portico there was a wide terrace that could be accessed from the balconies of the main floor, where the protocol flags waved next to the coats of arms of the city. The interior of the building also underwent substantial modifications over time. However, the main rooms of the town hall remained in their original locations, largely preserving the initial design . This includes the stairwell and the chamber of secrecy, which corresponds to the session hall, hardly altered in its original structure.

The town hall was completely demolished in January 2001 due to its poor state of conservation and the inadequacy of the existing spaces to carry out the required functions. A new town hall was erected on the same site, although in this case separated from the walls of the tower and the parish church. The project was designed by the architect Luis Felipe de Gaztelu and financed entirely by the Fuentes Dutor Foundation, and was inaugurated on September 7, 2002. The new building, design avant-garde, has an exterior clad in stone and Corten sheet metal, with a thin concrete eave. Despite its modernity, it retains elements of architectural tradition, such as its quadrangular shape articulated in three levels of height, a clock similar to the previous one at the top and an upper iron structure that simulates a belfry. These details evoke the old Renaissance town hall, of which only the facades of the clock and the original coat of arms of the town were preserved, which had been on its façade since 1597. It has a three-towered castle with a bovid's head, a heraldic element that already appeared on the coins minted in the Roman mint.