Traditional Houses of Rural Spain [antikvár]

.1I ,1 liH .,' . I f fi!Vii,i 'I',. I'i 'T'11 I'IyNTRODUCTION^HE TWO MOST AWESOME architectural monuments in Spain are the Alhambra Palace in Granada and El Escorial near Madrid. Both are born of Spanish stocli, but the two stand worlds apart. Built by the Nasrid Sultans who ruled in the closing days of the Moslem occupation, the Alhambra is a masterly integration of buildings, gardens and landscape. Its plain red adobe walls, set against the snow-tipped peaks of the Sierra Nevada in southern Spain, screen a sensual architectural inner complex designed as a leisured and contemplative retreat for the Sultans.The grey, granite magnificence of El Escorial stands in the foothills of the Guadarrama Mountains overlooking Madrid. It was designed for the Spanish King Philip II to celebrate the defeat of the French at St Quentin in 1557, but it became a mausoleum for himself and his line. Austere and solemn, El Escorial is a brooding monument to a brooding king who could not take his mind off the inevitability of death and judgement. The Christian El Escorial and the Moslem Alhambra represent two contrasting styles, two cultures and two ways of life. They also symbolise the essential and long-lasting mystery of Spain.If we liken Spain to a rich, refined garden and its buildings to the flowers which grace the place, accidents of history have given this garden an Eden-like quality - the Mudejar towers of northern Spain; the Moslem mosques of the south; the strange brick fortifications of Castillo de Coca in Segovia; the golden gates of Santiago de Compostela; and the flamboyant Sagrada Familia, Barcelona's shrine to 19th-century Modernismo (see Chapter 3). Other architectural plants in this cultivated garden, everyday working homes of the sierra (mountain ranges) and the meseta (the broad, elevated plains), are as celebrated as the Alhambra or El Escorial - the puei>-los blancos (whitewashed villages) of Seville, and the windmills of La Mancha which so upset Cervantes' myopic Spanish hero, Don Quixote. Unlike the architectural masterpieces which take your breath away, these are not thePictures of the pastLEFT: Farms and palaces, cottages and castles have survived for centurieshidden away deep in the Spanish countryside. No other European country possesses so much unaltered evidence of its architectural past.