Plaza de la Escandalera

La Escandalera is a rectangular square between Oviedo’s historic centre and its shopping district, which makes it a busy place to pass through. At different times it has carried other names, among them 27 de Marzo, General Ordóñez, República and Generalísimo, and it was not until 1979 that the city council officially recognised the name Escandalera for the first time, the one people had always used.

Several distinctive buildings surround it. The Casa Conde, which takes up the whole north side, was designed in 1904 by Juan Miguel de la Guardia in an eclectic, French-inspired manner. On the corner of Fruela and San Francisco streets stands the Casa del Termómetro, a functionalist design by Vidal Saiz Heres from 1936 that the Civil War delayed until 1944 and which owes its nickname to the continuous glazing of its corner. The square also holds the sculpture La Maternidad by the Colombian artist Fernando Botero.