The Silk Market is the main monument of the city and a masterpiece of civil Gothic architecture. The building has been declared by UNESCO as part of Humanity's Heritage. Construction on the Lonja began in 1483, a project of renowned master builder Pere Compte. Its resemblance to old Medieval castles is based on the rigid appearance of a fortress accentuated by its stone walls. The building contains four main parts, each one for a different use: the main Tower, the Consulado del Mar room, the Patio de los Naranjos (Orange tree courtyard), and the Contracts Room (with many spiral columns).
The Llotja de la Seda (English: Silk Exchange; Spanish: Lonja de la Seda) in Valencia is a late Gothic style civil building, built between 1482 and 1548, and one of the principal tourist attractions in the city. The UNESCO considered it as a World Heritage Site in 1996 since "the site is of outstanding universal value as it is a wholly exceptional example of a secular building in late Gothic style, which dramatically illustrates the power and wealth of one of the great Mediterranean mercantile cities.
Behind the current building, there was an earlier one from the Fourteenth Century, which was called the Oil Exchange (Llotja de l’Oli, in Valencian, or Lonja del Aceite, in Spanish). It was used not only for trading with oil, but for all kind of business.
The commercial prosperity that Valencia reached its peak during the fifteenth century, and led to the construction of a new building.The design of the new Lonja of Valencia was derived from a similar structure in the Lonja of Palma de Majorca, built by the architect Guillem Sagrera in 1448. The architect in charge of the new Lonja was Pere Compte (1447-1506), who built the main body of the building -the Trading Hall or Sala de Contractació (in Valencian)- in only fifteen years (1483-1498). So is written in a blue band that runs along all four walls of the Trading Hall, also called Hall of Columns.
