Mudejar Architecture
Introduction
Aragonese Mudejar architecture is an aesthetic current within Mudejar art that has its center in Aragon (Spain) and that has been recognized in some representative buildings as a World Heritage Site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO, in its English acronym).
The chronology of the Aragonese Mudejar spans from century to century and includes more than a hundred architectural monuments located, predominantly, in the Ebro, Jalón and Jiloca valleys, where the population of Mudejars and Moors was numerous, who maintained their workshops and artisan traditions, and stone was scarce as a construction material.
The first manifestations of Aragonese Mudejar have two origins: a palatial architecture linked to the monarchy, which reformed and expanded the Aljafería Palace while maintaining the Islamic ornamental tradition and Muslim builders, and a popular architecture that linked with the Romanesque that stopped building in ashlar masonry and began to make its constructions in brick often arranged in ornamental traceries of Hispano-Muslim roots, which can be observed in churches in Daroca that, being Started in stone, they were finished in the century with Mudejar brick panels.
The Mudejar architecture in Aragon adopts functional schemes preferably from the Cistercian Gothic, although with some differences. The buttresses often disappear, especially in the apses, which thus adopt a characteristic octagonal plan, with wide walls that allow the thrusts to be supported and give space to the highlighted brick decorations. On the sides of the naves the buttresses – often topped with turrets, as happens in the Mudejar Pilar – end up generating chapels and are not visible from the outside. The existence of neighborhood churches (such as that of San Pablo de Zaragoza "Iglesia de San Pablo (Zaragoza)") or small urban centers that consist of a single nave is common, and it is the chapels located between the buttresses that provide the temple with a greater number of worship spaces. On the other hand, it is common for a closed gallery or andito to be found above these side chapels, with windows to the exterior and interior of the temple. This constitution is called fortress-churches, and its prototype could be the church of Montalbán.
Characteristic is the extraordinary ornamental development shown by the bell towers, whose structure is inherited from the Islamic minaret: a quadrangular plan with a central pillar between whose spaces stairs are covered by means of approach vaults, as happens in the Almohad minarets. The bell tower, normally polygonal, is located on this body. There are also examples of octagonal towers.