Narciso Pascual y Colomer constructed the enormous rectangular square with a curved head in 1844. King Joseph I Bonaparte, who ordered the demolition of the farmhouse on the site to open a vast avenue from the palace to the Puerta del Sol, was one of its principal advocates. This square was created because this avenue was never completed.

The Plaza de Oriente is uneven, but the Royal Theatre dominates the eastern end, which curves. The center gardens, Cabo Noval Gardens, and Lepanto Gardens are three huge quadrants.

The Baroque-style central gardens are grid-shaped around Philip IV's monument. They have seven parterres with box hedges, cypress, yew, small magnolia trees, and temporary floral plants. Rows of statues divide the other two quadrants on both sides.

Twenty Spanish kings—five Visigoths and fifteen monarchs of the early Christian kingdoms of the Reconquest—are sculpted in two rows running east-west across the plaza on either side of the central gardens. The 'Gothic kings' divide the central plaza from the Jardines del Cabo Noval to the north and the Jardines de Lepanto to the south. The statues were commissioned by Ferdinand VI for the Royal Palace in Madrid to honor all Spanish rulers. 1750–1753 saw their execution.