Riera Theatre and La Manzanera
Chapter 3/12 · Villaviciosa
This is the Riera Theatre, built between 1942 and 1945 on the initiative of the industrialist Laureano Riera. It was designed by the architect Fernando Cabanilles, a local man, in a regionalist and historicist style: notice the play of volumes, balconies, eaves and arches on the façade. It was an ambitious project combining cinema, theatre, flats and offices. It closed in 2002, and the Town Council reopened it, restored, in 2008.
Opposite stands «La Manzanera», by the Valencian sculptor Mariano Benlliure: a country woman carrying a basket of apples. It is the monument to Obdulio Fernández, one of the men behind El Gaitero cider and a great benefactor of the town, who helped pay for the Graded Schools. It was unveiled on 12 September 1932, in the middle of the Portal festivities, on the basin of an old fountain. They say Benlliure used one of Obdulio's nieces as the model for the woman's face; below you will see a medallion with his profile and the figures of a bagpiper and a drummer.
Right next to it, the church of La Oliva is waiting for us.
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