Sculpture

Route 8 – Ríos de Ferro

Since September 2017, decorating the surroundings of the Restollal Oak Grove and representing a great wave, we find the sculpture Ríos de Ferro. Made up of elongated pieces of iron, this sculpture was made by forge artists from all over Spain at the first Forge Workshop, organized by the Consortium and the City Council of Santiago and carried out, in June 2017, in A Quintana Square. The direction of the work fell to Miquel Xirau and Santiago Martínez, as well as to Óscar Aldonza, creator of the original design.

Route 17 – San Lázaro gate

Porta Itineris Sancti Iacobi (side view)

Upon arriving in Santiago de Compostela through Monte del Gozo, in the San Lázaro neighborhood, the pilgrim finds the Puerta de Europa, a granite and bronze sculpture that is 17 meters high.
It features twenty people who, in one way or another, helped to make the Camino de Santiago, also called the Main Street of Europe, known.
Each pilgrim is received with the bronze hand of the artist who made it, as a greeting to the city.

Route 17 – The Pilgrim Templar

The sculpture "The Pilgrim Templar" (1999), unique in the world, is the work of the sculptor Santiago de Santiago. This statue is in a small park, following the Camino de Santiago. The work represents the spirit of the Camino, symbolizing the figure of the Templar pilgrim.

Route 17 – José Cao Lata workshop

Art gallery in which we can admire curious works of stonework by this sculptor (who died in June 2025) who was a disciple of Asorey.

Route 16 – Occupied Cromlech space

Espazo Cromlech Ocupado of Bonaval (side view)

Leopoldo Nóvoa was another of the artists who contributed to making the San Domingos de Bonaval park the ideal complement to the museum of contemporary art to consolidate the CGAC ecosystem. The Espazo Crómlech Ocupado was placed in 1998 in the meadow of the Campos Novos.

Route 16 – Pablo Iglesias statue

Statue of Pablo Iglesias in Parque de Pablo Iglesias

In Santiago de Compostela there is a monument dedicated to Pablo Iglesias Posse, located in the city as a tribute to the founder of the PSOE and the UGT. The sculpture depicts Iglesias emerging from a marching crowd, symbolizing his popular background and his role as a leader of the Spanish labor movement.

Route 16 – Monument to García Lorca

Statue of Federico García Lorca on the steps of Paseo da Ferradura

The poet visited Compostela on several occasions and had an idyll with our city that flourished in the Six Galician Poems, which would be published in 1935. Years earlier, in 1932, he had been in Santiago with the theater company La Barraca; from that room there is a photo that shows Federico on the stairs of the Quintana; this is how the sculptor Álvaro de la Vega portrays him here, with the same blue cover of the theater group and a cordial gesture. The piece looks at Rosalía, symbolically fulfilling the writer's wish to pay homage to the poet and bring her a white camellia. A tree of that variety was planted nearby.

Route 16 – Monument to Rosalía de Castro

Monument to Rosalía de Castro (frontal view) in Paseo da Ferradura

On the Paseo da Ferradura in the Alameda Park in Santiago is this beautiful statue dedicated to the Galician poet Rosalía de Castro. It is a sculpture made of granite, which is dated 1917 and whose authors are Isidro de Benito and Francisco Clivilles.
The sculpture has several plaques: from the Unidade Gallega in New York dedicated to the "cantora do pobo galego", from the Centro Santiago de Compostela in Bos Aires (1934), from the Peña Gallega Manuel Murguía in Santa Fe (1959), from the Centro Gallego de Puerto Rico in (1965) and from Cantigas e Agarimos (1971), among others.
The enclave in which it is located is idyllic due to its abundant vegetation and views of the Cathedral and the South University Campus.

Route 16 – Homage sculpture to Carlos Maside

The painter Carlos Maside spent much of his life in Santiago de Compostela, where he died and where he is buried. Since 2021 he has a tribute in the heart of the city: a sculpture in his honor on the Paseo dos Leóns de la Alameda. A photograph taken in 1952 immortalized one of his walks along the Alameda with Uxío Novoneyra and Manuel María. Now, that snapshot is eternal thanks to the work of Soledad Penalta, who gave life to the image with steel.

Route 16 – Homage sculpture to Valle-Inclán

Valle-Inclán Statue in Paseo da Ferradura

This sculpture of the Galician playwright and poet Valle-Inclán is made in bronze by the sculptor César Lombera and has been on the Paseo de los Leones in the Alameda park in Santiago since January 1999.
It is a sculpture that perfectly represents the writer's way of being, since Valle-Inclán himself sat on that bench to admire the Cathedral when he lived in Santiago. Many tourists take advantage of this sculpture to take a photo with the writer and also admire the views from the same place from which he did.
As a curiosity: the writer's bronze glasses are welded from time to time when they are periodically torn off by vandals.