Mercado de Abastos de Linares

The Abastos Market in Linares, located at the end of Calle Santiago, was designed by the municipal architect Francisco de Paula Casado y Gómez and was built between 1903-1906, according to the main façade. One of the most emblematic buildings in the city, it was designed as a finishing touch to a long and complicated urban process that began in 1875 and transformed the urban layout of Linares, by providing public infrastructures adapted to the major economic and demographic development that the city has been undergoing since the mid-19th century.

This market, all on one level with a historicist style that prevailed at that time, with a Neo-Mudejar influence, is in the shape of a large nave with solid walls and masonry covered with red brick and stone along the skirting, moulding in the hollows and tile panels along the cornice. The market was refurbished in the 1980s, and more recently, in 2014.

Today, it has regained its traditional use as a wholesale market selling meat and fish and has incorporated stalls with pulses, vegetables, fruit, pickles, sweets and flowers, which were traditionally located in the nearby square. It has also become a museum open to the public, where one can learn about the work from the best representatives of contemporary Linares painting: such as the installation of the metal relief, by the artist Paco Baños, who also decorated the upper part of the stage at the Linares Teatro Olympia and new works of art commissioned to internationally recognised Miguel Ángel Belinchón “Belin”, a prime example of urban art and graffiti .

Belin made a raised work of art in galvanised steel, representing a child fishing a tuna from his boat, waiting for a red traffic light to allow him to carry on his way. The main figure measures 6 metres, and the traffic light, which forms part of the artwork, is the old device from the Ocho Puertas (Eight Doors), rescued from the municipal cellar.