Stock Photo - The Plaza Mayor was built during the Habsburg period and is a central plaza in the city of Madrid, Spain It is located only a few Spanish blocks away from another famous plaza, the Puerta del Sol The Plaza Mayor is rectangular in shape, measuring 129 by 94 metres, and is surrounded by three-story residential buildings having 237 breathtaking balconies facing the Plaza It has a total of nine entranceways The Casa de la Panadería, serving municipal and cultural functions, dominates the Plaza Mayor The origins of the Plaza go back to 1576 when Philip I asked Juan de Herrera, a renowned Classical architect, to discuss a plan to remodel the busy and chaotic area of the old Plaza del Arrabal Juan de Herrera was the artist who designed the first project in 1560 to remodel the old Plaza del Arrabal but construction did not start until 1617, during Philip III´s reign The king asked Juan Gómez de Mora to continue with the project, and he finished the porticoes in 1619 Nevertheless, the Plaza Mayor as we know it today is the work of the architect Juan de Villanueva who was given the glorious, albeit difficult task of its reconstruction in 1790 after a series of enormous fires Giambologna´s equestrian statue of Philip III dates to 1616, but it was not placed in the centre of the square until 1848