Celestino Solar Citadel

The Citadel of Celestino Solar, better known as the Citadel of Capua, is an ethnographic space that aims to show the public the living conditions of the proletarian class of Gijón in the last third of the 19th century and in the years of the 20th century before and after the Civil War.

The Capua citadel was the best known of all those that existed in the city of Gijón/Xixón and its origin is associated with the development and implementation of the Plan de Ensanche del Arenal de San Lorenzo. It was built in 1877 by Celestino González Solar, an indiano who returned from Cuba.

The houses were occupied by approximately eighty to one hundred people until they were completely uninhabited in 1987.

The houses were usually inhabited by a married couple, their children and the parents of one of the spouses. There were also many single women, widows and single mothers surviving on precarious employment.