Free-D

So the Plaza Mayor didn’t even get into the top twenty short list for Antena Tres’ twelve wonders of spain. We shouldn’t feel too bad about it though: popularity often  carries with it an implication of coarseness or superficiality - and  beauty contests are frequently won by people who fit a dull, prescribed format. Demure, subtle beauties such as Salamanca usually have to wait a while for sensitive lovers. This is of course an allusion to Miguel de Unamuno, the Bilbao born “enamorado” of the city.  We’ve all had our infatuations. Many are bowled over by Segovia’s vertiginous qualities: her soaring arches – her proud, skyward pointing turrets (which served as a model for Neuschwanstein castle in Bavaria, which in turn Disney referenced for his famous “sleeping beauty” castle.) Others are seduced by the heady delights of  a complete mediaeval wall, such as Ávila boasts. You have to confess that the Plaza does rather poorly in the antiquity stakes: it was completed in 1755 and the belfry added in the nineteenth century.  As Spanish architecture goes, it’s a mere infant. But since when has age been a criterion of “aesthetic virtue”?  And if it’s size you’re after, again, the plaza fares quite badly; it’s of modest proportions. But therein lie its charms:  if you want a “big brassy beauty” then Salamanca’s plaza mayor just can’t deliver, it’s too subtle – its spiritual qualities too inextricably linked to the rhythms of the city and the cotidiana to be summed up in a postcard snapshot. This is the key to why the Plaza  failed to impress the nation. Of course it looks very pretty on a postcard, nobody would deny that. It’s just that for a country brimming over with cathedrals, castles and architectural wonders of every kind – it simply doesn’t look that impressive. But how aptly the modest proportions and elegant understatement of the plaza become her literary paramour, the soft spoken yet immortal Unamuno. Walt Disney wouldn’t have even given the Plaza a second glance, its character is essentially democratic, liberal and progressive – in sharp contrast to his rigid reactionary  character.

They’re funny things beauty contests aren’t they? They tell you more about the people who judge them than the winners themselves. If you judge beauty by the quality of love bestowed upon the object of desire, rather than by the physical qualities they may possess, then Salamanca’s Plaza Mayor not only becomes a contender for the top twelve of Spain but for the top twelve of the world.