The Plaza is the social and visual heart of the city, an unexpectedly elegant square of cypresses and lawn ringed on every side by the mansions of the sheep barons. At its centre stands the Monumento a Hernando de Magallanes, unveiled in 1920 to mark the 400th anniversary of the explorer's passage through the strait — a tall bronze of Magellan striding above figures representing the Tehuelche and Ona peoples and a globe.
In good weather the benches fill with schoolchildren, retired sailors and Bolivian Aymara women selling alpaca knits. Around the square you can see the Palacio Sara Braun, the Casa Braun-Menéndez (now the regional museum), the Sociedad Menéndez Behety building, and the cathedral — almost the entire architectural inheritance of the city's wool boom standing in one block.