Types of farmhouses
Contenido
Como ya se ha indicado, hoy en día se utiliza la palabra cortijo para designar cualquier construcción rural de Andalucía o Extremadura (más raramente en Castilla-La Mancha), aunque lo cierto es que la palabra cortijo se ha referido, históricamente, a un tipo muy concreto de estas construcciones. Así, podemos distinguir varios tipos de hábitats rurales en las zonas indicadas:[7].
The olive grove and the hacienda
They are nuclei of semi-detached buildings, with gabled roofs, sometimes finished off on the façade of the gate. The construction is usually made of rammed earth or brick, with verducados in some places, corners of stone masonry, all whitewashed, and with unroughened logs in the roof reinforcements.
They are abundant in the countryside of Jaén "Province of Jaén (Spain)"), Córdoba "Province of Córdoba (Spain)"), Seville and Badajoz, in the plains of the Guadalhorce River and in other places dedicated to olive cultivation, such as the mountains of Jaén, although they are not common in mountain areas. They are easily identified by the oil mill tower and the manor house (whatever its entity), located in a preferential location and, usually, with its back to the patio.
The cereal farm or farmhouse
The Cortijo itself is always a cereal farm, that is, located on countryside land dedicated to the cultivation of cereal.
It is usually associated with a latifundia land ownership structure, in which it constitutes the nucleus of exploitation of a large area of land. It is very similar to the olive grove, although logically it lacks an oil mill and only rarely has a stately home, instead the large granaries and drying sheds are visible. It occurs in large areas of Jaén, Córdoba, Seville and Badajoz; somewhat less, in Granada, Málaga and Cádiz.
Similar in their general approach are the rural constructions in the mountainous areas of the north of Huelva, Córdoba and Jaén, although they are not linked mainly to cereals, but to livestock.
The vineyard or vineyard house
On occasions, when they were not focused on urban centers, wine production activities have led to the appearance of a scattered, differentiated and highly dense habitat, even without forming a construction typology in the strict sense.[8] The characteristic house of these farms in the Jerez region is called Viña, which is a block-house similar to those of a meadow or orchard, and which is characterized by the fact that most of the built surface is dedicated to the block. of winepresses, a large room where the tools for the production of must are located. The industrial area of the estate is completed with the must cellar, adjacent to it, and where the first fermentation takes place, after which the wine was transferred to the urban wineries specialized in aging.
They usually lack a manor house, however, there is frequently a house for the foreman. However, there are Viñas with interesting architectural examples of stately housing, chapel, porches and gardens, in the style of the Haciendas de Olivar.[9].
In the past they were an important work center for unemployed people in the area or farmhands.[10].
Vega's house or garden
They are usually made up of a main building, made up of a block-house, to which some secondary buildings are attached (barns, stables, smaller homes...), with access to all of them from a walled side patio. The façade of the main house usually faces a market or utility room.
It is the type typical of mountain olive grove areas (South of Jaén and Córdoba), smallholding areas such as the plains of Granada and Málaga, and in the semi-mountainous areas of the south of Seville and north of Cádiz.
The isolated farmhouse
It is a unique construction, closely linked to smallholder farms with limited economic capacity. It is very common in the mountainous areas of the Betic System, as well as in the plateaus of Malaga and Granada, where it usually appears with a side fenced patio or other small attached buildings.
The popular farmhouses that abound on the coastal strip of Almería (Níjar, Tabernas), the Alpujarras and the Region of Murcia can also be considered of this type. Its inhabitants were either humble sharecroppers, owners or tenants or also day laborers, shepherds and mule drivers. The former were better equipped and frequently had a double floor, several bedrooms, barns, stables, corrals and other rooms and the latter had dirt floors, small windows and the rooms were not separated in such a way that the inhabitants lived with the animals. They did not have good sanitary conditions, so that ceilings, walls and even floors were whitewashed with whitewashed lime. They could be presented as farmhouses in a row.[11].
Regarding the components of the building, it should be noted that the walls were built with stone and cemented with clay mortar, mortar "Mortar (construction)") of sand and lime or baked plaster. Another type of wall is rammed earth or adobe. They were generally covered with a mixture of sand and lime or plaster mass and whitened with fired quicklime, giving rise to the image of a "white Andalusian farmhouse" but farmhouses with exposed stone are also presented. They had an exterior without ornaments and culminated in terraces "Terrace (architecture)") with parapets and pipes, although there were also gable roofs or mixed enclosures. Inside, the walls and ceilings were plastered with clay mud, or with a mixture of lime and sand or construction plaster whitened with fired quicklime. The floors were made of pressed clay, mixture or gypsum with granules and where the animals passed were paved. The main room was the kitchen and the remaining rooms were located around it, which were accessed through arched openings, such as bedrooms, crop storage, stables, barns and patios.