Portals of Vitoria-Gasteiz: Difference between revisions

View of the Portals in the Plaza de la Virgen Blanca in 1833, Vitoria-Gasteiz.

View of the Portals in the Plaza de la Virgen Blanca by Spanish painter Juan Ángel Sáez in 1855.

The Portals or Arcs of Vitoria-Gasteiz were a Medieval crenelated fort-houses / towers that fortified the entrances to the streets of the city of Vitoria-Gasteiz (Basque Country autonomous community, Spain). The eastern City Walls for example, had a single entry or access to the side of Portal del Rey, which closed with solid doors every night as the remaining streets of the city.

The access to unions neighborhoods was protected by this respective gateways, each with the defense of its correpondind fort houses.

This crenelated towers were called so as these had in the center a accesses like gates.

Were distinguished the Portal de la Correría (Fort house of the Nanclares); Portal de la Zapatería (Fort house of the Soto) or the Portal de la Herrería (Fort house of the Abendaño).

A cholera epidemic was the pretext to demolish these portals between 1854 and 1856, although surely to sought better access and control of the inner neighborhoods. With it, it lost one of the most characteristic elements of the medieval city.