Celestino Solar Citadel

The Citadel of Celestino Solar presents one of the existing models of workers’ housing in Asturias.
The citadels were inhabited by the working class of Gijón at the end of the nineteenth century and for much of the twentieth century. In Gijón/Xixón, more than two hundred citadels were documented, the most representative being that of Celestino Solar. Built in 1877 on Capua Street, it was made up of 23 houses and remained inhabited for more than a century.
The Citadel of Capua, as it was also known, was built by the Indiano Celestino Solar on the grounds of the Ensanche de El Arenal, on an interior plot. The houses that make it up were always hidden from view from the street. Between 1880 and 1890 inside a wall and, at the beginning of the twentieth century, after the construction of the buildings that currently surround it, inside a courtyard that was accessed through the same corridor that today gives entrance to the Museum. More than a hundred neighbors shared space and life in this Gijón courtyard.
The Citadel was inaugurated as a museum in 2003 and, since 2018, when it reopened its doors with a completely renovated museography.