La Lonja del Cáñamo

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The construction was begun in 1606-1617, by Francisco Galiança. It was a property, with a rectangular floor plan, of a single floor and with two open façades with two great arches supported on Tuscan columns. In 1792 and before the ruinous condition that the building presented the Ayuntamiento de Castellón (Castellón City Council) agreed to sell it. The building of La Lonja thus acquired a very peculiar characteristic: the ground floor is municipal property and of public usage while the upper building is a privately owned family home. The new construction shows late Baroque façades with allegorical paintings by Joaquin Oliet from Morella. In 1906 the city sells the old lonja (market/exchange) and it becomes private property. The new owners confer an eclectic character and academicist style on it which implies the closure of the arches and the construction of a mezzanine to turn the ground floor into a shop and the rest of the building into middle-class housing. Vicente Castell carries out the picturesque remodelling, conserving the allegories of Oliet and incorporating Pompeian motifs. In 1984 it was declared a historical-artistic monument. The Universidad Jaume I (James I University) acquired the building in November 1999 to recover it for the city as a centre for cultural and educational development. In the recent architectural interventions maximum loyalty to the accumulation of styles and architectural interventions that the building has experienced has been sought after.