Osborne bull
The Osborne bull ( in Spanish: Toro de Osborne ) is the silhouette of a bull. It was originally planned as a large billboard on Spanish roads, where he was to serve as an advertisement for the brandy Veterano Osborne Group. Over time it evolved from trademark to a national symbol of Spain. Today vorfindlichen Osborne bulls have no advertising slogan. They are about 14 meters high, made of 70 metal plates and have an area of about 150 m² with a weight of about four tons.
Similar Bulls of the Osborne Group, however, bear the name of Brandy Magno found on Mexican roads.
History
In 1956, the advertising agency Azor was commissioned by the Osborne Group to design a symbol that should represent the brandy Veterano on billboards. The artist Manolo Prieto, then working for the agency then, suggested the figure of a wild bull, which is used to this day. In May 1957, the list of figures began. They were four feet high, made of wood, had white horns and were decorated with the Veterano. As the original wooden figures of the weather did not stand up, was started in 1961 to produce them made of metal and they were enlarged to seven meters high. After 1962, a new law was enacted which a minimum distance of 125 meters prescribed advertising signs along highways to the road, the company responded by increasing the bulls at 14 meters height.
The law passed in July 1988 General Highway Law (Ley General de Carreteras ) called for the removal of all billboards within sight of state highways, including members raided the Osborne bulls. Direct response was the removal of the writing with the brand name of their traps. The elimination of all bulls was adopted in 1994 in an ordinance. But different Autonomous Communities, numerous communities, cultural organizations, artists, politicians and journalists were in favor of their preservation. The Junta de Andalucía applied for its classification as a cultural asset, the Comunidad Foral de Navarra called for a state law to maintain the bulls. In December 1997, the Spanish Supreme Court ruled that Osborne bulls were maintained. The court's opinion argued that the preparers possess more than their original promotional nature and are now integrated into the landscape, there was therefore " aesthetic or cultural interest" in their retention.
Today there are over 90 bulls at Spain's highways.
The Osborne bull today
The image of the bull is to be found today outside of its original purpose advertising in various forms, for example, on bumper stickers, souvenirs and Spanish flags.
Through its advertising and touristy folkloric use addition, the Osborne bull - especially in conjunction with the Spanish flag - but also used as a distinguishing feature of Spanish centralists, which has led to a political and symbolic charge of the bull and consequently to an open rejection the character in republikanisch-/linksorientierten circles and regions with distinct regional nationalism. Thus, the last remaining established in Catalonia bull was destroyed in 2009 at El Bruc by Catalan nationalists, after he had previously been repeatedly the target of vandalism. In recent years, also developed - partly in an ironic reference to the bull, sometimes polemical rejection of the same - different regional symbolic animals who delight in the form of stickers, printed t-shirts and the like increasingly popular: the Catalan donkey, the Basque sheep and the Galician cow.
Distribution
At the moment there are 88 unevenly distributed over Spain bulls. While some autonomous communities no (Cantabria, Ceuta, Melilla, and Murcia ), or just have a bull (Balearic Islands, Canary Islands, Catalonia, Navarra and the Basque Country ), some provinces have already eight alone, such as Alicante and Cadiz. Below is a table showing the breakdown between the various autonomous communities: