We begin our route in Plaza de Galicia.

JOFRE THEATRE

Façade by Rodolfo Ucha in 1920.

The Jofre theatre is the work of Faustino Domínguez Domínguez, who was the author of the initial design, and his son, Faustino Domínguez Coumes Gai, who was also an architect and to whom the end result is attributed.

Work began in 1872 and continued for many years until the building was inaugurated on 19 March 1892.

The floor plan of the building is in the shape of a horseshoe. This design facilitated its impeccable acoustics which are ideal for the staging of lyrical dramas.

The interior consists of three floors decorated in a classical style which was typical of 19th century theatres and which emulated Italian theatres from the Baroque period. Jorge Busato and Fontana di Cento were the renowned scene painters who produced the fresco on the ceiling. Following the Italian Baroque tradition of clear perspective, the genres of the dramatic arts were captured in an allegorical group. The spectator´s curiosity is also awakened by the proscenium arch.

The façade of the Jofre theatre originally occupied the entire length of what is today the Plaza de Galicia. It was sober and plain, displaying a bareness that did not correspond to the ornamental wealth of its interior. In 1919 the theatre changed hands to become part of the Fraga company. Its new owner, Isaac Fraga Penedo, hired the architect Rodolfo Ucha Piñeiro, the pioneer of Art Nouveau in Galicia, to design a more sumptuous façade in order to give the Jofre a more theatrical public face. If anything was to highlight the façade, it was the magnificent arcade of segmented arches supported by lonic paired columns. Floral wreaths hang from the capitals and above them appear alternating masks representing comedy and tragedy. This grand design gave the theatre the air of a modern urban palace, with its particularly impressive eclectic terraced arcade.