Spanish architecture

The term includes buildings which were constructed within the current borders of Spain prior to its existence as a nation, when the land was called Iberia, Hispania, or was divided between several Christian and Muslim kingdoms.

Simultaneously, Christian kingdoms such as Castile and Aragon gradually emerged and developed their own styles, at first mostly isolated from other European architectural influences, and soon later integrated into Romanesque and Gothic and Renaissance streams, they reached an extraordinary peak with numerous samples along the whole territory.

The 19th century had two faces: the engineering efforts to achieve a new language and bring about structural improvements using iron and glass as the main building materials, and the academic focus, firstly on revivals and eclecticism, and later on regionalism.

Spain is currently experiencing a revolution in contemporary architecture and Spanish architects like Rafael Moneo, Santiago Calatrava, Ricardo Bofill as well as many others have gained worldwide renown.

Religious architecture also spread throughout the Peninsula; examples include the Roman temples of Barcelona, Córdoba, Vic, and Alcántara, The main funerary monuments are the Torre dels Escipions in Tarraco, the distyle in Zalamea de la Serena, and the Mausoleum of the Atilii in Sádaba, Zaragoza.

Spanish territory boasts a rich variety of Pre-Romanesque architecture: some of its branches, like the Asturian art reached high levels of refinement for their era and cultural context.

From the 6th century, it is worth mentioning the remains of the Cabeza de Griego basilica, in Cuenca and the small church of San Cugat del Vallés, in Barcelona.

Asturian Pre-Romanesque is a singular feature in all Spain, which, while combining elements from other styles as Visigothic and local traditions, created and developed its own personality and characteristics, reaching a considerable level of refinement, not only as regards construction, but also in terms of aesthetics.

The most important example is the church San Julián de los Prados in Oviedo, with an interesting volume system and a complex iconographic fresco program, related narrowly to the Roman mural paintings.

The hermitage of San Baudelio de Berlanga presents an unprecedented typology, including in its rectangular plan a tribune over a small hypostyle hall, in the manner of mosques, and its roof is supported by a single central pillar shaped like a palm tree.

This architecture is a summary of elements of diverse extraction irregularly distributed, of a form that in occasions predominate those of paleo-Christian, Visigothic or Asturian origin, while at other times emphasizes the Muslim impression.

Its key features include a hypostyle hall with marble columns supporting two-tiered arches, a horseshoe-arch mihrab, ribbed domes, a courtyard (sahn) with gardens, and a minaret (later converted into a bell tower).

[8]: 116–128 The late 11th century saw the significant advance of Christian kingdoms into Muslim al-Andalus, particularly with the fall of Toledo to Alfonso VI of Castile in 1085, and the rise of major Berber empires originating in present-day Morocco.

It is a very simple style, whose characteristics are thick walls, lack of sculpture and the presence of rhythmic ornamental arches, typified by the churches in the Valle de Bohí.

Although Plateresque is a commonly used term to define most of the architectural production of the late 15th and first half of 16th century, some architects acquired a more sober personal style, like Diego Siloe and Rodrigo Gil de Hontañón.

A disciple of Herrera, Juan Bautista Villalpando was influential for interpreting the recently revived text of Vitruvius to suggest the origin of the classical orders in Solomon's Temple.

[22] As Italian Baroque influences grew, they gradually superseded in popularity the restrained classicizing approach of Juan de Herrera, which had been in vogue since the late sixteenth century.

The Churriguera family, which specialized in designing altars and retables, revolted against the sobriety of the Herrerian classicism and promoted an intricate, exaggerated, almost capricious style of surface decoration known as the Churrigueresque.

Twin-towered façades of many American cathedrals of the seventeenth century had Renaissance roots and the full-fledged Baroque did not appear until 1664, when the Jesuit shrine on Plaza de Armas in Cusco was built.

In the Viceroyalty of Peru, the Andean Baroque was particularly lush, as evidenced by the monastery of San Francisco in Lima (1673), which has a dark intricate façade sandwiched between the twin towers of local yellow stone.

While the rural Baroque of the Jesuite missions (estancias) in Córdoba, Argentina, followed the model of Il Gesù, provincial "mestizo" (crossbred) styles emerged in Arequipa, Potosí and La Paz.

To the north, by 18th-century the richest Viceroyalty of New Spain – from nowadays Costa Rica to Mexico – produced some fantastically extravagant and visually frenetic architecture known as New Spanish Churrigueresque.

For instance, the Sanctuary at Ocotlán (begun in 1745) is a top-notch Baroque cathedral surfaced in bright red tiles, which contrast delightfully with a plethora of compressed ornament lavishly applied to the main entrance and the slender flanking towers.

The true capital of New Spanish Baroque is Puebla, Mexico, where a ready supply of hand-painted glazed tiles (talavera) and vernacular gray stone led to its evolving further into a personalised and highly localised art form with a pronounced Indian taste.

Pre-Spanish Philippine architecture was based on the native nipa hut, which corresponds to the tropical climate, stormy seasons, and earthquake prone environment of the archipelago.

When the city of Barcelona was allowed to expand beyond its historic limits in the late 19th century, the resulting Eixample district by Ildefons Cerdà became the site of a burst of architectural energy known as the Modernisme movement.

Other notable Catalan architects of that period include Lluís Domènech i Montaner and Josep Puig i Cadafalch, although their approach to Modernisme was largely more linked to Neo-Gothic shapes.

The consequent effect of which, in tandem with Franco's preference for "a deadening, nationalistic sort of classical kitsch", was to largely suppress progressive modern architecture in Spain.

[24] Nevertheless, some architects were able to reconcile advances in construction with official approval, notably in the prolific output of Gutiérrez Soto whose interest in topology and rational distribution of space effectively alternated historical revivals and rationalist imagery with ease.

[25] The influx of money from EU funding, tourism and a flowering economy strengthened and stabilised Spain's economic base, providing fertile conditions for Spanish architecture.