What is John Mackintosh Square (the Piazza) in Gibraltar?
Short answer
John Mackintosh Square, known locally as the Piazza, is Gibraltar's old main square, opening off Main Street. Parliament House, built in 1817 as the Exchange and Commercial Library, stands on its east side, and the City Hall, built in 1819 as the home of the merchant Aaron Cardozo, faces it from the west end.
Detailed answer
In the Spanish period this was the town's main square and its commercial hub. Under the British it was known by several names, including Commercial Square, and it was renamed John Mackintosh Square after the death of the philanthropist John Mackintosh in 1940. Most people in Gibraltar still call it the Piazza. The square was fully refurbished in the late 1990s.
Parliament House straddles Main Street and the square. Some 160 of Gibraltar's leading merchants paid for it by public subscription, and it was built in 1817 as the Exchange and Commercial Library, with a library and an auction room. They built it because the Garrison Library, run by the officers of the garrison, would not admit civilians, however wealthy they were. The Exchange Committee that met there became the main voice of Gibraltar's civilian population in the nineteenth century. After a fire in 1919 the gabled roof was replaced with the flat roof seen today. The Legislative Council moved into the building in 1950, the House of Assembly replaced it in 1969, and since the 2006 Constitution took effect on Tuesday 2 January 2007 it has been the seat of the Gibraltar Parliament.
In a niche on the west front of Parliament House, facing the square, is a bust of John Mackintosh, unveiled in April 1974. Mackintosh was a Gibraltarian who made his fortune selling coal to the Royal Navy. He died on Wednesday 28 February 1940, and his will set up a trust for the benefit of the people of Gibraltar, which later paid for the John Mackintosh Hall, a hospital wing and homes for the elderly.
The City Hall at the west end of the square was built in 1819 as the mansion of Aaron Cardozo, a wealthy merchant who supplied Nelson's fleet. It later became a club and a hotel, then the home of the Larios family, and the Government bought it in 1920. The City Council first met there in 1924. Today it holds the Mayor's Parlour and the Mario Finlayson National Art Gallery.