Three and four storey cream facades around a 19th century obelisk, with the house where Picasso was born on the square.
What Plaza de la Merced looks like
The square is one of the largest public squares in central Málaga, in the La Merced quarter. Its facades rise three and four storeys, painted cream and yellow, with green shutters and iron balconies on the upper floors. Cafés run their terraces along the ground floors and the paving is pale stone.
The facades at numbers nine and ten are the oldest on the square and date from the 18th century. Number twelve is an 1883 building with a glazed gallery on its top floor.
The stands in the middle of the square, a 19th century obelisk with bronze plaques and an iron railing around its base. The plaques honour General José María Torrijos and 48 companions. The Picasso statue is a bronze figure 1.4 metres tall, seated on a marble bench with a pencil in hand. The bench leaves room for a person to sit beside him.
Numbers fifteen to twenty form the block. Number fifteen is the , now a museum and the headquarters of the Pablo Ruiz Picasso Foundation, with a stone-framed doorway and the foundation's sign at street level. The stands on Calle Granada, south of the square, where Picasso was baptised.
Shot in Plaza de la Merced
The Málaga Film Office lists Plaza de la Merced among the locations of Genius Picasso, the National Geographic series in which Antonio Banderas plays Picasso. The second season of the series began filming in Málaga in November 2017.
Genius Picasso, 2017
Plaza de la Merced
The Film Office lists the square among the series' locations in Málaga. Matador Network names it as one of the places the production chose for Picasso's original locations. Street View
What Plaza de la Merced can double for
Plaza San Martín in Lima, Peru
Lima's Plaza San Martín was inaugurated in 1921 with marble benches, bronze streetlamps and a central monument. Its flanks were built in neocolonial style in the 1930s and 1940s, and Málaga's obelisk and three and four storey facades could pass for that scale in a wide frame. Tiled roofs and café terraces give Málaga away in a wide frame, and the square's cast-iron lamp posts would need swapping for bronze ones. Try searching neocolonial plaza monument now.
Santa Fe's plaza has a central park of trees and benches, with a bandstand, laid out after New Mexico became a territory. Its open green centre matches the square in a wide frame, but its adobe fronts are a different material from Málaga's painted facades. Adobe walls and the bandstand give Santa Fe away, so frame close on the trees and benches. Try searching adobe plaza with trees now.
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