Playful Architecture
Introduction
By architecture of Spain is understood the existing architecture in what is currently Spanish territory and the architecture carried out by Spanish architects in the world. Due to the temporal and geographical breadth of the history of Spain, Spanish architecture has had a multitude of influences and manifestations.
Even before the settlements that Roman sources could describe (such as those of the Iberians, Celtiberians, Cantabrians...), vestiges of architectural forms exist in the Iberian Peninsula that are comparable to other examples of Mediterranean cultures and similar to those of northern Europe.
A real development came with the arrival of the Romans, who left behind some of their most impressive monuments in Hispania. The arrival of the Vandals, Suebi and Visigoths caused a profound decline in Roman techniques but also the contribution of more austere construction techniques with religious ties, just as happened in the rest of the West. The Muslim invasion in 711 marked a radical change in the next eight centuries and led to great advances in culture, including architecture. Córdoba "Córdoba (Spain)"), capital of the Umayyad dynasty and Granada, of the Nasrid dynasty, were cultural centers of extraordinary importance.
In the Christian kingdoms, their own styles gradually emerged and developed, initially isolated from European influences and later integrated into the great European Romanesque and Gothic architectural trends, which reached an extraordinary height, with numerous religious and civil examples throughout the entire territory. Simultaneously, the Mudejar style developed, from the 19th century onwards, which was characterized by a mixture of cultural currents of European structural heritage and Arab decoration.
Towards the end of the century and before colonizing Hispanic America with colonial and baroque architecture, Spain experimented with Renaissance architecture, developed mainly by local architects (Pedro Machuca, Gaspar de Vega, Juan Bautista de Toledo, Juan de Herrera, Andrés de Vandelvira...). The Spanish Baroque is characterized above all by the exuberant Churrigueresque, distinguishing itself from later international influences, and giving its most important works development in the Spanish American Empire, mainly missions, cathedrals and public architecture. The colonial style, which was maintained for centuries, still has a great influence in Cuba, Mexico, Central America and the countries of the South American Pacific. Neoclassicism had its peak in the work of Juan de Villanueva and his disciples.
The century had two facets: the effort in engineering to achieve a new language and structural improvements with iron and glass as the main materials, and the academic current that first focused on historicism and eclecticism and later on regionalisms. The entry of modernism "Modernism (art)") into academic currents produced figures such as Antonio Gaudí in the architecture of the century. The International Style "Rationalism (architecture)") was led by groups such as GATEPAC.