Art & Culture
Cultural Heritage
The Urdanibia Palace is situated a few kilometres outside the town of Irun, beside a ford in the River Jaizubia. It is typical of the Ancien Régime period with a mill and an ironworks close by, and in the year 2000 all three constructions were designated a monumental site. The palace is a three-storey rectangular building with a hip roof and a handsome facade. The ground floor displays two windows with fillet mouldings around the edges and in the centre a door in the same style flanked by two pilasters. The panels between these elements are smooth and rise to meet a cornice. The three windows on each of the middle and top floors also have fillet moulding around the edges, similar to that of the ground-floor windows, but in this case rest on moulded parapets positioned to give the impression of a single line. On the middle floor the spaces between the openings are covered with decorative motifs. On the left-hand side, for example, there is an oval cartouche with the following inscription: "Sebas/tian de Ur/danivia re/difico es/ta ca/sa/ año de /1619" (Sebastian de Urdanivia rebuilt this house in the year 1619). There is also a cartouche on the right-hand side, this time displaying the family coat of arms. Between 1992 and 2003 the Urdanibia Palace housed the International Basque Pelota Federation. Nowadays, it is home to two libraries belonging to the Basque Film Archive, a temporary measure to resolve the shortage of space until this institution moves into the Tabakalera building.
Palace