Paseo del Parque and City Hall

Look at the ground beneath your feet: it didn't exist a hundred and fifty years ago. This whole promenade, with its garden and the buildings that line it, was built on land reclaimed from the sea.

1Filling in the bay

In the late 19th century the port was enlarged to a plan by the engineer Rafael Yagüe. New quays were built and a strip of land was gained, filled in with rubble from houses demolished on the slopes of the Alcazaba and with silt from the Guadalmedina river. The works cost so much that there was talk of selling the land, but the Málaga-born politician Antonio Cánovas del Castillo got the state to advance the money, and the land ended up in the city's hands.

2A garden from five continents

Planting began in 1899. Today the park brings together species from all over the world, such as the silk floss tree, with its bulging, spiny trunk. It is considered one of the most remarkable gardens of subtropical plants in Europe.

Official buildings were lined up along the north side of the promenade. The first was the City Hall, known as la Casona del Parque, by Fernando Guerrero Strachan and Manuel Rivera Vera, inaugurated on 11 April 1919. Then came the Post Office, now the university rectorate, and the Bank of Spain, from 1936.

Before this building, the City Council had been housed in the old main square, convents and palaces: it took four centuries to get a home of its own.

3What to look for

• The zinc-scaled domes on the corners of the City Hall.
• The façade decoration, Neo-Baroque with Modernista touches.
• The giant trees in the park, some planted over a century ago.