Presentation of the book ‘Plazas con frontón en Euskal Herria’

On Thursday 20 April the book ‘Plazas con frontón en Euskal Herria. La transformación del juego de pelota y su implantación en los centros históricos’ –squares with fronton courts in the Basque Country. The transformation of the pelota game and its implementation in historical centres– (Pamiela, 2023) will be presented at the Basque Country Architecture Institute. The book is the work of architects Alberto Ustarroz and Manuel Íñiguez and has been coordinated by Daniel Carballo, current curator of the exhibition ‘Pilotalekuak. Building the void’.

The book contains a research study that analyses the formal characteristics of some examples of built heritage, through the passage of time, related to the plazas where Basque pelota game space has been established. The space formed by buildings surrounding a public space, the plaza, is characteristic of the Basque urban environment. Many municipalities still maintain the squares made up of the town hall, the church and the fronton with different formal and constructive characteristics. In many cases, many of them related to the urban and industrial evolution of the town, these original urban spaces have disappeared, moving the Basque pelota game to closed spaces -the well-known frontons, closed, covered and with fixed stands-. Nowadays we have a large heritage of squares attached to a building, to a frontage or rebound wall, or to a fronton with a left wall (some of them to the right), with many of them maintaining the characteristics of when they were long Basque pelota courts. The urban transformation of these squares, or the covering of the spaces where pelota is played, may be the last step towards the disappearance of a space that has been characteristic of the urban planning of the Basque Country since the 17th century. This work serves to vindicate and enhance its value.