Celestino Solar Citadel

The Citadel of Celestino Solar presents one of the existing models of workers’ housing in Asturias.
The citadels were inhabited by the working class of Gijón at the end of the 19th century and for much of the 20th century. In Gijón/Xixón, more than two hundred citadels were documented, the most representative being that of Celestino Solar. Built in 1877 on Capua Street, it was made up of 23 houses and remained inhabited for more than a century.
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The Citadel of Capua, as it was also known, was built by the Indiano Celestino Solar on the grounds of the Ensanche de El Arenal, on an interior plot. The houses that make it up were always hidden from view from the street. Between 1880 and 1890 inside a wall and, at the beginning of the twentieth century, after the construction of the buildings that currently surround it, inside a courtyard that was accessed through the same corridor that today gives entrance to the Museum. More than a hundred neighbors shared space and life in this Gijón courtyard.
The Citadel was inaugurated as a museum in 2003 and, since 2018, when it reopened its doors with a completely renovated museography. As a testimony of the Industrial Revolution that it is, it is part of the Industrial Museums area of the Municipal Foundation of Culture, Education and Popular University of Gijón/Xixón, together with the Railway Museum of Asturias.
The visit
The museum occupies the same space as the old citadel of Celestino Solar. Its main objective is to interpret and explain, from the living space, the living conditions of the working class of Gijón and Asturias from the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, to the last decades of the twentieth century. The permanent exhibition has four different thematic units, and explains who was the family that owned the citadel, how it evolved from its construction to its total eviction and who the people who inhabited it. In addition, an audiovisual can be viewed where former tenants tell their life experience in the courtyard of Capua. The different sections of the museum are distributed as follows.
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Large Patio
This is what the neighbours called this area of social confluence, which has now been converted into a landscaped space. It preserves the main walls of the old houses, remains of the original floor and a part of the wall that closed the citadel at the time of its construction, at the end of the nineteenth century. A series of panels have been arranged in it that contextualise the Asturian and Gijón industrial revolution and the problem of workers’ housing.
Small Yard
A row of houses and the toilets for community use corresponding to this courtyard have been rebuilt there. In the first of the houses, with original furniture and objects of the time, the material conditions of life in the citadel in the thirties and forties of the last century have been recreated. The rest of the rehabilitated houses are used as permanent exhibitions, temporary exhibition rooms and activity rooms, respectively.
Hallway or Entrance Alley
On both sides of the alley that gives access to the courtyard of Capua you can see several large murals made by the Asturian cartoonist Neto, which recreate scenes of daily life in the citadel.
Temporary exhibition
The citadel has two temporary exhibition halls where exhibitions related to the theme of the museum are held: housing, urban planning or social history from between the end of the nineteenth century and much of the twentieth century.
Activities and services
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The Citadel develops its programme of activities aimed at all audiences, which is renewed annually and includes, among others, guided tours, itineraries and conferences. On the other hand, the Citadel develops, within the framework of various programmes of the Municipal Foundation for Culture, Education and the Popular University of Gijón/Xixón, other activities of a special nature, in addition to promoting educational programmes with the aim of explaining this unique space in the heritage, social and historical history. The educational activities include, among others, school and children’s workshops, guided tours for adults and activities aimed at people with disabilities.
Publications
https://www.gijon.es/es/publicaciones/un-patio-gijones-la-ciudadela-de-capua