Review
This is one of the squares that provide the background for La Moneda Palace and has become an icon of public-spiritedness and the center of civic life.
Set on the grounds of the former Ministry of War and the Navy headquarters, it took on its current design in 1984 when it was renovated.
Statues of Diego Portales and the Presidents of the Republic Jorge Alessandri Rodríguez, Eduardo Frei Montalva and Salvador Allende Gossens stand on this square as leading protagonists in the history of Chile.
History
It is located in Santiago’s Civic Quarter, an area that includes the buildings that were erected around La Moneda Palace during the first decades of the 20th century under the direction of Austrian urban designer Karl Brunner.
Brunner advised the Presidency on the importance of implementing a space that would make La Moneda Palace stand out against its surroundings; it was thus that Plaza de la Constitución, or Constitution Square, started taking shape.
The city block on the north side of La Moneda Palace where it is located used to be inhabited and featured a number of buildings, including the Ministry of War and the Navy.
Over time, however, the area came to be used as a parking place. Thus, while important ministerial buildings were being erected around the palace, the lot reserved for the square tarnished the architectural attraction of the area until, in the 1980s, a public tender awarded to the Undurraga and Devés architects firm led to the final renovation of the square.
With pathways from the four corners leading to a central roundabout, the square highlights the ministerial buildings around it.
Moneda, Santiago.