Very few events have the massive influx of the offering of flowers in the Plaza del Pilar in Zaragoza. There, every October 12, a mountain of flowers grows under the figure of the Virgin, who comes outside the basilica that day. Up to eight million flowers formed a mantle as aromatic as it was colorful last 2022. Thousands and thousands of bouquets contributed by 350,000 people who paraded from dawn to night through the largest pedestrian plaza in the European Union.
An event that mixes devotion and folklore, culture and celebration. Of course there is the most cliché of the tradition, but curiously it is a day in constant evolution. Perhaps you think that the offering is “for life”, but no. The first was celebrated in 1958 with a tremendously simple event. However, it was brutally accepted and every day El Pilar became more populous. Which has involved changes in the ritual on several occasions.
Currently it is staged following the dictates of the Catalan Bigas Luna, almost an adopted Aragonese. He moved the Virgin away from the temple and devised the pyramid on which the sculpture is placed. He calculated all possible perspectives to enhance the aesthetics of the event and turn it into a television event, very appropriate for the streaming era. In fact, in the days that follow, the fast-motion montages that capture in seconds how the floral mantle grows and grows always have a great impact.
In some way all of this can be understood as a metaphor for what a city with a very long history and very proud of its traditions, but at the same time open to change, offers. Zaragoza is a two-thousand-year-old city and it neither can nor wants to let go of those two thousand years of culture captured in monuments that have become icons. Without going any further, the view of the Piedra Bridge, the oldest in the city over the Ebro, with the Pilar in the background is the photo that all visitors are looking for.
Or the Aljafería that all the tourist buses visit and appears in any book about Al Andalus, since it is the northernmost Islamic palace in Europe. But again in its rooms history and the present are mentioned. Because this construction from the 11th century is still in use, rebuilt and adapted to the 21st to house the Cortes of Aragon. If it was once the royal palace of Muslims and then of Christians, now it has mutated into the seat of power of the people.
The same fusion between past and present emerges from other corners. For example, in El Tubo, a tapas area par excellence that maintains the usual animation. There are still places with the essence of a wine and a simple serving of anchovies in brine, but the vast majority of bars have opted for sophistication in their pinchos, while preserving the casual, and at times somewhat crass, atmosphere of the Tubo. In that sense, the El Plata cabaret represented the most libertine fun on these streets. And again we must mention the multifaceted Bigas Luna, who promoted its reopening and created a new show for today’s viewers.
Also two of the most interesting museums in Zaragoza unite the old and the new. Both dedicated to two sculptors named Pablo: Gargallo and Serrano. The first, Pablo Gargallo, who explored countless paths in the avant-garde and who knows where he would have ended up if he had not died so soon. Well, his works, sometimes cubist, sometimes modernist, sometimes abstract, are shown in the patio and the rest of the rooms of a baroque palace, that of the counts of Argillo located in the old town.
While the sculptures of Pablo Serrano, equally unclassifiable due to his dalliances with various trends and aesthetics, are permanently exhibited in the very modern IAACC building (Aragonese Institute of Contemporary Art and Culture). A property that was a carpentry workshop, but was renovated a little over a decade ago to transform into a risky construction of projecting volumes and colored metal facades.
However, if we talk about contemporary architecture, without a doubt the great jewel is the Puente pavilion designed by architect Zaha Hadid. A surprising steel and fiberglass structure over the Ebro destined to be the only habitable bridge in Spain. And what inhabits it? Well, since 2023 it has been the headquarters of Mobility City. Three floors inside the bridge that house a museum dedicated to sustainable mobility and spaces to celebrate all types of activities related to this key topic for the future.
This Puente pavilion, the neighboring Congress Palace or the Water tower within the Luis Buñuel park, are part of the legacy of Expo 2008, which had water as its central theme and, therefore, was located next to the Ebro. The river where Legend has it that the Virgin of Pilar appeared to the apostle Santiago, which gave rise to the current basilica, the devotion and the massive offering. And the same river that inspired one of the most prestigious current artists, Jaume Plensa, who also contributes his note of postmodernism in Zaragoza with his monumental work Alma del Ebro.
