Gijón/Xixón would not be what it is today and its visitors would not be able to interpret this city today if in the last century and a half the process of industrialization had not been accompanied by chimneys, workshops, factories, citadels, machines and people capable of creating a melting pot of ways of life, customs, ways of living and working.
We start in the Plaza Mayor, in front of the City Hall building, built according to a project by the architect Andrés Coello in 1865. Years of turbulent economic activity in the city as shown by the nearby Tobacco Factory, the manufacturing settlements of the Natahoyo and La Calzada neighborhoods, the agri-food industries, or the ceramic and glass factories.
Cimavilla
From here we begin the ascent to the Cimavilla neighborhood, and we arrive at the old Tobacco Factory, located in what was the convent of the Augustinian Recollects since 1843. The building of the Factory, austere and imposing, was erected under the direction of the master stonemasons Ignacio de Palacio and Juan San Miguel, and was completed in 1679. The Chapel was finished in 1684 and in 1733 a new floor was added to what had been built previously. The chapel served as a warehouse until the surprising closure of the Factory in 2002, with remains of frescoes on its walls and an original microclimate that housed the bales of tobacco, which were then transformed and manufactured into products such as the popular farias or the most distinguished cigars supplied to the Spanish Royal House.
In Cimavilla there is also the Viña Lithography, on Calle de Honesto Batalón. It is perhaps one of the most notable exponents of the thriving graphic arts industry that the city had in the twentieth century. This new location of the traditional company, founded in 1920 by the brothers Juan and Robustiano Viña Mori at 106 Calle del Marqués de Casa Valdés, is the result of the safeguarding of the company’s machinery and funds after an agreement between its former owners and the City Council and the Ministry of Culture. In the post-war period, the Viña Lithography was relaunched with the purchase of a Voisin press and a manual press of the Mansfield brand, focusing on the labeling of preserves and bottles of cider, in addition to advertising posters. Today it is a center of Artistic Printing.
We resume the path to the Marina, observing as we pass the modern glass building of flats where the Hijos de Ángel Ojeda oil canning factory was once located (1923), until we reach the headquarters of the old Port Board, owned by the Port Authority of Gijón/Xixón. From the Cuesta’l Cholo we can see the old Rula today reused in an exhibition hall, offices and restaurant. On the promenade, you can intuit the old route of the port railway, where goods, minerals, noise, fumes and the movement of operators, steam cranes, sailors, boats, boats, nets and fishing equipment coexisted for years. Today it is one of the favourite places for people from Gijón and people who visit us.
FUN FACT: in 1890 when Gijón/Xixón had less than 40,000 inhabitants, 1,935 women and fifty men worked in the Tobacco Factory. This female group was characterised by its own social attitudes such as popular solidarity, the defence of their rights and wages, the creation of their own trade unionism, ways of working and collective leisure.
Downtown
Back at our starting point, we take the Paseo de San Lorenzo where we see the old Basque-Asturian Hardware Store, converted into a hotel next to the Nautical Gardens. On San Bernardo Street we can see interesting examples of civil architecture with industrial and commercial connotations, such as the old Simeón Warehouses, in San Bernardo nº 30, one of the most unique buildings of eclectic architecture, built in 1901 with a project by the architect Luis Bellido for the Indiano Gumersindo García Cuervo, or the old Banco de Crédito Industrial Gijón, in Los Moros nº 1, built in 1902 with a project by the same architect.
Going out onto Rufo Rendueles Avenue, we can stop at the Citadel of Celestino Solar, from 1877, inside the block of the so-called Capua hammer, an exponent of the ways of life of the Gijón working class at the end of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It has an entrance corridor of two and a half meters and a blocked house prevented the view from the street of the set of 23 houses and two communal toilets. This citadel was inhabited until 1987 and is currently transformed into a museum. In Gijón/Xixón, more than two hundred citadels were documented, the most representative being this one, which is also known as the Citadel of Capua.
FUN FACT: The life of the inhabitants of the Citadel of Celestino Solar was not easy, since the family salary was barely enough to cover basic needs. It was inhabited by about a hundred people who shared four toilets, two in the large courtyard and two in the small one. They all lived in full view of everyone and had always known each other. Solidarity between neighbors was manifested in difficult times, although there were also frequent conflicts of daily life that arose, in general, due to common cleaning tasks.