Made up of a platform level, the space is defined around the principal focal point, which is the Town Hall building. The square has a regular configuration which is rectangular-like in shape and bound on two sides by the two axes that run along the sides of the Town Hall building and by Rua Direita (Main Street), which crosses them at the side opposite the main building.
The tree lines in the central slab reinforce the sense of purpose of the Town Hall building in the space. The paving highlights the central slab and furnishes the space with autonomy through the contrast it makes with the rest of the paving around the square.
The space was originally created as a square for a small chapel which was delineated by the crossing of two structuring development arteries of the city: Rua Direita, as an access road inland and a structuring element running perpendicular to the sea, and the Cathedral street, as a structuring development axis of the city running parallel to the sea.
The Town Hall was built in the 17th century in this space joining the two principal axes of the city. Due to the need to extend the original building, a new edifice was erected which was later demolished in the 19th century to redefine and regularise the configuration of the square. The current building was built in 1849, as a project carried out by Joaquim Lima Júnior.
The square’s new configuration and its resizing were achieved through the demolition of some buildings and by setting back the new Town Hall building in relation to the previous one. This led to the disappearance of a bystreet which ran along the back of the original building of the Town-Hall and which was absorbed in the new urban space.
This space’s roots are married to civic activity and local power in the city, and it joins the Town Hall with the Pátio da Alfândega and with the former Palace of the General Captains, through the backbone artery of Rua Direita. Today, it keeps its initial urban articulation features and also its link with the Town Hall building, which is the origin behind the square.
