Cathedrals

The cathedral (seat of the bishop) represents an important milestone in the history of New Spain cities. At the level of the urban landscape, due to the preeminence of its volumetry in the middle of the built context, and symbolically because in addition to representing the real and civil religious powers, it practically accompanies the history of the development of the city throughout its construction.

In the middle of the century, the development of a decorative technique that directly affects the purposes that shaped the sensitivity of the Baroque: Plasterwork. Using models copied both from book illustrations (mainly grotesques and plaques) and from European Renaissance craftsmen, the first groups of plasterers from Spain settled in Puebla beginning in the fourth decade of the century, extending the influence of their work to neighboring Tlaxcala; The work of mortar (mixture of lime and sand), generally applied to the frames of the doorways, like that of the plasters that dressed the interiors of the religious enclosures, consisted of modeling these plastic materials based on the baroque or stone structure of the walls and vaults, and creating coatings that gradually take over not only the totality of the surfaces, but the particular quality of the spaces, by establishing a harmony plastic-expressive whose environmental resonance annihilates the geometric homogeneity of architecture, creating a discourse of frenetic apparent mobility. It is at this moment when the baroque becomes more authentic and larger, that is, when it creates a new spatial conception, since in these monuments the character of movement and interpenetration typical of the baroque triumphs, not only in terms of architectural plasticity, but also of spatial reality (Zevi, 1993, pp. 94-95).

Churches

Among the churches, the starting point of Baroque architecture can be considered the Church of the Gesù in Rome, built from 1568 according to the project of Jacopo Vignola. The building, which represents a synthesis between Renaissance, Mannerist and Baroque architecture, fully satisfied the new demands that arose after the Counter-Reformation: the longitudinal layout of the floor plan made it possible to accommodate the greatest number of faithful, while the Latin cross floor plan with numerous side chapels represented a return to the tradition of the Council of Trent. This is what a figure as important as Cardinal Borromeo will state:

On the other hand, the presence of a dome underlined the centrality of the space towards the back of the nave "Nave (architecture)"), and presaged the search for an integration between the longitudinal and centralized scheme. Also the façade, built according to the project of Giacomo della Porta, anticipated the most markedly baroque elements, comparable to those of the elevations of Santa Susanna" and San Andrés del Valle.

From this model a series of churches with a centralized longitudinal plan or elongated central plan were derived, characterized by the longitudinal axis and the presence of a catalyst element of the composition, generally a dome. It was built in 1985.

If the Mannerist architects altered the rigorous composition of the Renaissance facades by adding themes and decorations characterized by a refined intellectualism, but without modifying the planimetric and structural logic of the façade of the buildings, the Baroque architects modified both the composition in plan and façade, generating a new conception of space. In both aspects, a break from the traditional and linear is achieved to achieve greater expressiveness in its figures. The facades of the churches were no longer the logical continuation of the internal section, but became plastic organisms that marked the transition between the exterior and interior space. The interior space, therefore, was composed of complex figures based on ellipses and curved lines that would allow it to resemble existing nature, and thus generate a much more detailed architecture that expresses feelings, and was defined through the movement of spatial elements, radically differentiating itself from the Renaissance conception that generated a uniform succession of elements arranged symmetrically between them.

Palaces

In the civil architecture of the time, two types of noble constructions can be distinguished: the palace, generally located inside the city, and the villa "Villa (town)" in the countryside.

The Italian palace and its European derivatives remained faithful to the residential typology developed during the Renaissance, with a built body closed around an internal courtyard. The main facades were provided with central bodies highlighted and decorated through the use of giant orders, which had already been anticipated by Palladio. The axes of symmetry were extended to the interior of the building, where the lobby and internal patio opened; For example, the longitudinal axis introduced in the Palazzo Barberini in Rome contributed to the definition of the plan and underlined the connection with the exterior of the building. On the other hand, this palace was an important point in the development of the Italian palatial residential typology: the floor plan was H-shaped, and the entrance was through a deep atrium that became successively narrower, until reaching an elliptical room that served as the nodal center of the entire palace.

In France, however, the urban palace of the nobility, called hôtel, recovered for itself the layout of medieval castles. The harsher climate called for optimization of sunlight in the main rooms, which generated stepped façades and large side wings. The main body was set back from the street and preceded by the cour d'honneur, a transitional space open to the outside that at the same time separated the palace from the city. An example of this scheme is the Parisian Luxembourg Palace, built from 1615 by Salomon de Brosse. Here, unlike other buildings of the same style and period, the angular pavilions were not intended for service premises, but rather contained main rooms on each floor.

The French development of residences in the countryside, the so-called châteaux, was notable, which led to the construction of extensive complexes from which the main road axes that organized the surroundings departed. Among them, it is worth highlighting the Palace of Vaux-le-Vicomte (1656-1659), designed by Louis Le Vau, and the Palace of Versailles, the greatest symbol of French absolutism and whose reconstruction work was initiated by Le Vau himself on behalf of Louis XIV.

Landscaping

The ideal landscape of the Baroque era found its most characteristic expression in the French garden, especially in the creations of André Le Notre. The French garden was conceived as an infinite landscape arranged geometrically and centered on the palace which represents the focus of the system. But the true purpose is the sensation of infinite space that is materialized in a dominant longitudinal axis. All other elements are related to that axis, which divides two worlds: the urban world of man and the wide open world of nature.

Versailles represents the true essence of the environment of the century: dominance, dynamism and openness. Towards the end of the century, the entire landscape around Paris was transformed into a network of centralized and infinitely extended systems. The symbolic resolution that the squares seemed to have to represent the power of the monarch ended up being a landscape resolution for the user.

Thus, the city begins to form part of the landscape and takes over it. The exterior is integrated into the interior as another member of the space. What was previously a closed plant now “opens” to produce a link between the artificial and the natural, creating meeting points between the world of the city and the natural world of the garden and landscape.

The baroque is a style that crosses history, it never pretended to be understood by reason, by intelligence, but rather captured by the senses, it sought emotional effects in the viewer, not rational ones.

The Baroque emerged on the European artistic scene in two very clear contexts during the century: from the outset there was the feeling that, with the scientific advance represented by the Renaissance, classicism, although it had helped in this progress, was not in a position to offer all the necessary answers to man's doubts. The Universe was no longer the same, the world had expanded and the individual wanted to experience a new type of contact with the divine and the metaphysical. The lush forms of the Baroque, its elliptical space, definitely anti-Euclidean, were a response to these needs.

The second context is the Counter-Reformation promoted by the Catholic Church. With the advance of Protestantism, the old Roman Christian order (which, in a sense, had encouraged the advent of the Renaissance world) was being supplanted by new worldviews and new attitudes toward the Sacred. The Church felt the need to renew itself so as not to lose the faithful and saw in the promotion of a new aesthetic the opportunity to identify with this new world. The forms of the Baroque were promoted by the institution throughout the world (especially in the newly discovered colonies), making it the Catholic style, par excellence.

Authors such as Manuel G. Revilla, José Juan Tablada and Diego Angulo perceive a sharp division of the formal qualities of our baroque architecture according to the century to which they belong; That is to say, they divide New Spain baroque architecture into two centuries: The and the.

Revilla considers that in the century baroque architecture itself was produced, characterized by the alteration of the proportions of the architectural elements, multiplication in the shapes of the arches, broken pediments, abundant, irregular and rough moldings and the appearance of the column with a twisted or historiated shaft. Although straight profiles and undecorated panels are still preserved.

Para Revilla es en el siglo cuando el estilo adquiere madurez y entonces se le puede dar un nombre diferente al de simplemente barroco, se le puede llamar churrigueresco. The column becomes a pilaster covered with profuse ornamentation; se decoran todos los entrepaños, las líneas se rompen hasta el infinito y la escultura se convierte en un elemento decorativo más de los edificios.

José Juan Tablada, continues the same line of thought as Revilla and also divides Baroque architecture into two moments: the Hispanic Baroque or Mexican Baroque, typical of the 19th century, and the Mexican Churrigueresque, developed in the 19th century.

The characteristics that the author attributes to the Hispanic Baroque are: domes and graceful bell towers on the outside, while on the inside, the temples have the simple austerity of basilicas.

The Baroque style, like many others, emerged as a response to a problem perceived in previous (classical) orders. It emerges as a criticism of the architectural systematization of the currents derived from the classical order.

At that time there existed an undisputed guideline, an accepted “a priori” structure that governed when devising a work of architecture, where buildings were conceived as a representation of a reality that existed outside of themselves. These branches of architecture such as that of the Renaissance linked the building to a larger entity, whose materialization led to a timeless construction that gave its viewer the sensation of eternity and perpetuity.

However, architects like Francesco Borromini carry out the search for a break from pre-established mandates and propose a new conception of spatiality in architecture. The baroque architect, like Descartes, questions everything, verifying that the entire architectural heritage is not an illusion.

From this period, the conception of “space” and its formal representation are modified, the architect is the one who makes the space and therefore who, based on the architectural forms, determines the reality within it.[12]​ This architect will not be able to accept the pre-established architectural forms, but will have to successively invent his own forms. The work will result from the conception that its creator has of the world at that specific moment, the result of a vital process that only he experiences and that results in the art he creates.

The works of architecture in this era stop responding to a constructed story, and become facts without past or future, the present without consequences.[13]​.

Within this new formal parameter, the concept of infinity is introduced into architecture.[14] Baroque architecture is presented as a material expression of the dynamism of a space since, unlike previous orders, it is subject to the action of time. Architecture is no longer allusive to an entity foreign to man, eternal and impalpable, but is becoming a discipline that responds to everyday life and constantly reflects man's perspective on the world around him.

The main premise of the baroque architect is to understand his space, carrying out a juxtaposition between plasticity, volumetry and decorative elements that results in its conquest.

The Baroque is spatial liberation, it is mental liberation from the norms of treatise writers, from conventions, from elemental geometry and from everything static, it is also liberation from symmetry and the antithesis between internal space and external space. [15]​.

Spain

In Spain, the affirmation of the Baroque encountered difficulties due to the economic decline of the reign of Philip III. In the second half of the century, Philip II had ordered the construction of the important complex of the Monastery of El Escorial, built mostly according to the project of Juan de Herrera (1530-1597). Herrera is also responsible for the project of the Cathedral of Valladolid, which reinforced the concept of the central axis and which served as a model for the Cathedral of Mexico.

Progressively, the Spanish architecture of the century evolved towards the Baroque style, although it did not leave any significant examples. Most of the baroque influences were collected in an exclusively decorative way, especially in the churches. This language, which was quickly understandable even by the least educated segment of the population, was successfully exported to the American colonies.

Among the most important religious buildings of the century in Spain, we can highlight the Collegiate Church of San Isidro in Madrid, begun in 1629, the church of Santa María Magdalena "Iglesia de Santa María Magdalena (Granada)") in Granada (begun in 1677 with a longitudinal plan derived from buildings with this layout in Ancient Rome) and the Basilica of the Virgen de los Desamparados in Valencia, with an elliptical plan.

The penetration of the Baroque into its Italian architectural forms (complicated floor plans, movement of facades, abundant decoration that creates contrasts of light) is going to be slow. The presence of the religious ideology of the Counter-Reformation and the prestige of the monarchy of Philip II weighed on the art of the time: sobriety, simplicity and uniformity were preferred. There is an evident poverty of materials – brick, mud and plaster – along with a purification of lines – in the style of El Escorial. As well as a poor development of movement in plans and elevations; the straight line is preferred to the curve; There is a predominance of the Church with a single nave with chapels between buttresses - type of the Church of the Gesù of the Jesuits. The facades express the same simplicity of plans: "Of an abstract spirit, the palaces, churches and convents have facades with smooth walls based on large, slightly highlighted rectangles and interiors of diaphanous whiteness in which only the decorations of geometric squares and triangles of the vaults are clearly cut out, resulting in serious and calm sets for those who contemplate them from the outside or penetrate the interior."[25]

We have examples of this type of architecture in the Collegiate Church of San Isidro in Madrid (built by a Jesuit: it has a Latin cross plan similar to that of the Gesù, or San Andrés de Mantua by Alberti); the church of the Encarnación (Madrid); the Palace of Santa Cruz "Palacio de Santa Cruz (Madrid)") (today the Ministry of Foreign Affairs "Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Spain)"), the Casa de la Villa de Madrid, the Plaza Mayor of Madrid, the city of Lerma "Lerma (Burgos)") (Burgos); the Buen Retiro palace. These last five buildings follow the line called "Escurialense style", characterized by the sobriety of lines, compact volumes and quadrangular towers at the corners, with pyramidal roofs, spiers at the upper vertices and black slate tiles. At this time, some characteristic urban concepts of Spain stand out: the main squares. These are almost closed urban spaces, conceived as centers of religious-political spectacles—processions, autos-da-fe organized by the Inquisition, preachings, royal receptions. These squares are made up of different blocks of buildings arranged regularly, connected to the outside through passages covered by arches that lead to the peripheral streets. The most famous is the Plaza Mayor in Madrid.

The architecture becomes more complex. First, the decorative forms of the Italian Baroque penetrate – giant and Solomonic order columns, mobility of planes on the facades, among other elements – and later the spatial forms, with oval floor plans and concave-convex facades full of dynamism. Of the first group, the façade of the Granada Cathedral stands out - the work of Alonso Cano, arranged as a triumphal arch of three streets covered by semicircular arches -, the Basílica del Pilar de Zaragoza "Cathedral basílica de Nuestra Señora del Pilar (Zaragoza)") and the Clock Tower, by Domingo de Andrade, in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela.

During the century the construction of buildings accelerated, and the full assimilation of Italian spatial forms stands out, in the style of Borromini and Bernini, in works such as the Church of San Marcos "Iglesia de San Marcos (Madrid)") and the Royal Basilica of San Francisco el Grande, in Madrid; the Puerta de los Hierros #Puerta_de_los_Hierros "Cathedral of Santa María (Valencia)") of the Cathedral and the Basilica of the Virgen de los Desamparados, in Valencia; or the Church of the Pilgrim Virgin, in Pontevedra. They are constructions in which the complexity of their plans stands out, with games of curves and countercurves, a combination of oval, tangent and secant shapes, as well as elevations in which the domes, vaults and other structural elements reveal great formal sophistication.

Additionally, the cased domes created by Francisco Bautista in the century stand out: a double dome system in which the intrados, made of wood and plaster, is separated from the exterior, generating an intermediate hollow space that produces a greater effect of height and monumentality. Being lighter, they allow the creation of more comfortable interior spaces.

On the other hand, the architecture of the century increases the ornamental tendency to limits never achieved; This style is called churrigueresco, after the name of the family with this surname that produced greater works. It is a decoration of accumulating shapes in certain places of the building – doors, facade, etc.; They stand out for their monumentality and showiness, compared to the rest of the building with more sober lines. The Anava and Calatrava schools in Valladolid and the Plaza Mayor in Salamanca stand out. Pedro Ribera's are the Toledo Bridge in Madrid, and the Madrid Hospice. Other buildings of this style are the Palacio de San Telmo in Seville and the façade of the Obradoiro of the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, made by Casas y Novoa and which replaced the previous Romanesque one; It is a monumental façade structured like a grandiose triumphal arch in various depth planes (up to three) and great verticality.

Another complication of the Spanish Baroque is found in the spaces created to accommodate religious images such as: relics, tabernacle, sacristies and images of great devotion: theatrical effects come to combine in the use of space, indirect light and of strange origin, painting, sculpture, etc. They are small places in which baroque style explodes in its greatest degree of complexity and theatricality. Highlights include the Transparente of the Toledo Cathedral (by Narciso Tomé), the dressing room and tabernacle of the Cartuja del Paular, or the Tabernacle of the Cartuja of Granada (Francisco Hurtado Izquierdo). Another of the great schools of Spanish Baroque is the one founded at the beginning of the century by Francisco Hurtado Izquierdo, in Priego de Córdoba. In which the Sánchez de Rueda brothers, Juan de Dios Santaella, Francisco Javier Pedraxas, Remigio del Mármol and José Álvarez Cubero participated successively.

England

The architectural studies carried out in Italy by the stage designer Inigo Jones and the young Earl of Arundel constituted an initial impulse that paved the way for a fundamental reorientation of English architecture, which was still trapped in late medieval and mannerist forms. The Queen's House"), in Greenwich "Greenwich District (London)"), highlights the abrupt change in trends. The queen's palace consists of two rectangular blocks joined together by a bridge, connecting it with what was the Greenwich Hospital, today known as the Old Royal Naval College, declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Above the padded ground floor rises the piano nobile, the noble floor, which opens to the garden through a large gallery with Doric columns. Apart from Jones there were very few renowned architects in this period, but among them is Isaac de Caus, who built Wilton House, with its elegant and lavish box-shaped rooms called The cube and The Double Cube.

Without a doubt, if there is an English architect who stands out for the mastery of his works, it is Sir Christopher Wren, who managed to impose Roman classicism in England. In 1666, after the great fire of London, he was summoned along with his colleagues to present proposals for the reconstruction and urbanization of what was one of the most populated cities on earth. The impressive Saint Paul Cathedral, whose silhouette is unmistakable on the city skyline, and 51 other churches are the work of master Wren. The expansion of Hampton Court Palace by order of William III of England was also carried out by him between 1689 and 1692.

John Vanbrugh and Nicholas Hawksmoor gave Wren's style even more monumental and, above all, more picturesque and theatrical dimensions. Starting in 1699 they were in charge of the construction of the imposing Castle Howard in North Yorkshire. The enclosure entre cour et jardin (between patio and garden) consists of a wing of rooms similar to a corridor in whose center the living room open to the garden and the large square room open to the patio stand out. In 1715 and 1717 respectively they published the two volumes of the Vitruvius Britannicus, with engravings of classical British buildings and the translation of the Quatro libri dell'architettura by Andrea Palladio, which caused a new revolutionary change: Neo-Palladianism. This trend aimed at a return to the "noble and true rules" of Antiquity as Palladio and Inigo Jones had interpreted them. The main protagonist of this movement was Lord Burlington, an art expert who, with his Chiswick House, created a building with striking resemblance to the works of Palladio. Finally, it is worth highlighting other beautiful works of British Baroque that materialize in the residence of the Dukes of Devonshire, known as Chattsworth in Derbyshire, England, by the architect William Talman "William Talman (architect)") in 1694; without forgetting of course the monumental Blenheim Palace built in 1710 by the aforementioned John Vanbrugh, for the Duke of Marlborough on behalf of Queen Anne.

Mexico

Main article: New Spain Baroque Architecture.

The main disseminators of the Baroque in New Spain — a territory that included, among other countries, Mexico — were Spanish architects who built, for the most part, churches in the viceregal cities. Among the best-known examples is the Metropolitan Cathedral of Mexico City, designed by several Spanish and New Spain architects.

There are certain characters that give personality to the New Spain Baroque, both in the composition of the buildings and in the formal aspect. The most notable are the following:

The genesis of baroque architecture begins in Italy, with such determining figures as Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Francesco Borromini.

In Spain, baroque architecture will be dominated by the taste for disornamentation and sobriety that the Herrerian style had introduced, with important buildings in which a measured and almost classical style prevails.

In America, after the Spanish conquest, the language of the baroque developed significantly, enriching itself with the workmanship and concepts of pre-Columbian architecture and art, such as the extensive use of bright colors, with the Mexican, Peruvian and Cuban baroque especially standing out.

In Germany and Austria, the Italian inspiration combined with the French will create buildings of great decorative exuberance, especially in the interiors, with abrupt luminosity, which will give way to the Rococo style (Rococo is defined by the taste for luminous, soft and clear colors).

In England balance and austerity predominate.

Cathedrals

The cathedral (seat of the bishop) represents an important milestone in the history of New Spain cities. At the level of the urban landscape, due to the preeminence of its volumetry in the middle of the built context, and symbolically because in addition to representing the real and civil religious powers, it practically accompanies the history of the development of the city throughout its construction.

In the middle of the century, the development of a decorative technique that directly affects the purposes that shaped the sensitivity of the Baroque: Plasterwork. Using models copied both from book illustrations (mainly grotesques and plaques) and from European Renaissance craftsmen, the first groups of plasterers from Spain settled in Puebla beginning in the fourth decade of the century, extending the influence of their work to neighboring Tlaxcala; The work of mortar (mixture of lime and sand), generally applied to the frames of the doorways, like that of the plasters that dressed the interiors of the religious enclosures, consisted of modeling these plastic materials based on the baroque or stone structure of the walls and vaults, and creating coatings that gradually take over not only the totality of the surfaces, but the particular quality of the spaces, by establishing a harmony plastic-expressive whose environmental resonance annihilates the geometric homogeneity of architecture, creating a discourse of frenetic apparent mobility. It is at this moment when the baroque becomes more authentic and larger, that is, when it creates a new spatial conception, since in these monuments the character of movement and interpenetration typical of the baroque triumphs, not only in terms of architectural plasticity, but also of spatial reality (Zevi, 1993, pp. 94-95).

Churches

Among the churches, the starting point of Baroque architecture can be considered the Church of the Gesù in Rome, built from 1568 according to the project of Jacopo Vignola. The building, which represents a synthesis between Renaissance, Mannerist and Baroque architecture, fully satisfied the new demands that arose after the Counter-Reformation: the longitudinal layout of the floor plan made it possible to accommodate the greatest number of faithful, while the Latin cross floor plan with numerous side chapels represented a return to the tradition of the Council of Trent. This is what a figure as important as Cardinal Borromeo will state:

On the other hand, the presence of a dome underlined the centrality of the space towards the back of the nave "Nave (architecture)"), and presaged the search for an integration between the longitudinal and centralized scheme. Also the façade, built according to the project of Giacomo della Porta, anticipated the most markedly baroque elements, comparable to those of the elevations of Santa Susanna" and San Andrés del Valle.

From this model a series of churches with a centralized longitudinal plan or elongated central plan were derived, characterized by the longitudinal axis and the presence of a catalyst element of the composition, generally a dome. It was built in 1985.

If the Mannerist architects altered the rigorous composition of the Renaissance facades by adding themes and decorations characterized by a refined intellectualism, but without modifying the planimetric and structural logic of the façade of the buildings, the Baroque architects modified both the composition in plan and façade, generating a new conception of space. In both aspects, a break from the traditional and linear is achieved to achieve greater expressiveness in its figures. The facades of the churches were no longer the logical continuation of the internal section, but became plastic organisms that marked the transition between the exterior and interior space. The interior space, therefore, was composed of complex figures based on ellipses and curved lines that would allow it to resemble existing nature, and thus generate a much more detailed architecture that expresses feelings, and was defined through the movement of spatial elements, radically differentiating itself from the Renaissance conception that generated a uniform succession of elements arranged symmetrically between them.

Palaces

In the civil architecture of the time, two types of noble constructions can be distinguished: the palace, generally located inside the city, and the villa "Villa (town)" in the countryside.

The Italian palace and its European derivatives remained faithful to the residential typology developed during the Renaissance, with a built body closed around an internal courtyard. The main facades were provided with central bodies highlighted and decorated through the use of giant orders, which had already been anticipated by Palladio. The axes of symmetry were extended to the interior of the building, where the lobby and internal patio opened; For example, the longitudinal axis introduced in the Palazzo Barberini in Rome contributed to the definition of the plan and underlined the connection with the exterior of the building. On the other hand, this palace was an important point in the development of the Italian palatial residential typology: the floor plan was H-shaped, and the entrance was through a deep atrium that became successively narrower, until reaching an elliptical room that served as the nodal center of the entire palace.

In France, however, the urban palace of the nobility, called hôtel, recovered for itself the layout of medieval castles. The harsher climate called for optimization of sunlight in the main rooms, which generated stepped façades and large side wings. The main body was set back from the street and preceded by the cour d'honneur, a transitional space open to the outside that at the same time separated the palace from the city. An example of this scheme is the Parisian Luxembourg Palace, built from 1615 by Salomon de Brosse. Here, unlike other buildings of the same style and period, the angular pavilions were not intended for service premises, but rather contained main rooms on each floor.

The French development of residences in the countryside, the so-called châteaux, was notable, which led to the construction of extensive complexes from which the main road axes that organized the surroundings departed. Among them, it is worth highlighting the Palace of Vaux-le-Vicomte (1656-1659), designed by Louis Le Vau, and the Palace of Versailles, the greatest symbol of French absolutism and whose reconstruction work was initiated by Le Vau himself on behalf of Louis XIV.

Landscaping

The ideal landscape of the Baroque era found its most characteristic expression in the French garden, especially in the creations of André Le Notre. The French garden was conceived as an infinite landscape arranged geometrically and centered on the palace which represents the focus of the system. But the true purpose is the sensation of infinite space that is materialized in a dominant longitudinal axis. All other elements are related to that axis, which divides two worlds: the urban world of man and the wide open world of nature.

Versailles represents the true essence of the environment of the century: dominance, dynamism and openness. Towards the end of the century, the entire landscape around Paris was transformed into a network of centralized and infinitely extended systems. The symbolic resolution that the squares seemed to have to represent the power of the monarch ended up being a landscape resolution for the user.

Thus, the city begins to form part of the landscape and takes over it. The exterior is integrated into the interior as another member of the space. What was previously a closed plant now “opens” to produce a link between the artificial and the natural, creating meeting points between the world of the city and the natural world of the garden and landscape.

The baroque is a style that crosses history, it never pretended to be understood by reason, by intelligence, but rather captured by the senses, it sought emotional effects in the viewer, not rational ones.

The Baroque emerged on the European artistic scene in two very clear contexts during the century: from the outset there was the feeling that, with the scientific advance represented by the Renaissance, classicism, although it had helped in this progress, was not in a position to offer all the necessary answers to man's doubts. The Universe was no longer the same, the world had expanded and the individual wanted to experience a new type of contact with the divine and the metaphysical. The lush forms of the Baroque, its elliptical space, definitely anti-Euclidean, were a response to these needs.

The second context is the Counter-Reformation promoted by the Catholic Church. With the advance of Protestantism, the old Roman Christian order (which, in a sense, had encouraged the advent of the Renaissance world) was being supplanted by new worldviews and new attitudes toward the Sacred. The Church felt the need to renew itself so as not to lose the faithful and saw in the promotion of a new aesthetic the opportunity to identify with this new world. The forms of the Baroque were promoted by the institution throughout the world (especially in the newly discovered colonies), making it the Catholic style, par excellence.

Authors such as Manuel G. Revilla, José Juan Tablada and Diego Angulo perceive a sharp division of the formal qualities of our baroque architecture according to the century to which they belong; That is to say, they divide New Spain baroque architecture into two centuries: The and the.

Revilla considers that in the century baroque architecture itself was produced, characterized by the alteration of the proportions of the architectural elements, multiplication in the shapes of the arches, broken pediments, abundant, irregular and rough moldings and the appearance of the column with a twisted or historiated shaft. Although straight profiles and undecorated panels are still preserved.

Para Revilla es en el siglo cuando el estilo adquiere madurez y entonces se le puede dar un nombre diferente al de simplemente barroco, se le puede llamar churrigueresco. The column becomes a pilaster covered with profuse ornamentation; se decoran todos los entrepaños, las líneas se rompen hasta el infinito y la escultura se convierte en un elemento decorativo más de los edificios.

José Juan Tablada, continues the same line of thought as Revilla and also divides Baroque architecture into two moments: the Hispanic Baroque or Mexican Baroque, typical of the 19th century, and the Mexican Churrigueresque, developed in the 19th century.

The characteristics that the author attributes to the Hispanic Baroque are: domes and graceful bell towers on the outside, while on the inside, the temples have the simple austerity of basilicas.

The Baroque style, like many others, emerged as a response to a problem perceived in previous (classical) orders. It emerges as a criticism of the architectural systematization of the currents derived from the classical order.

At that time there existed an undisputed guideline, an accepted “a priori” structure that governed when devising a work of architecture, where buildings were conceived as a representation of a reality that existed outside of themselves. These branches of architecture such as that of the Renaissance linked the building to a larger entity, whose materialization led to a timeless construction that gave its viewer the sensation of eternity and perpetuity.

However, architects like Francesco Borromini carry out the search for a break from pre-established mandates and propose a new conception of spatiality in architecture. The baroque architect, like Descartes, questions everything, verifying that the entire architectural heritage is not an illusion.

From this period, the conception of “space” and its formal representation are modified, the architect is the one who makes the space and therefore who, based on the architectural forms, determines the reality within it.[12]​ This architect will not be able to accept the pre-established architectural forms, but will have to successively invent his own forms. The work will result from the conception that its creator has of the world at that specific moment, the result of a vital process that only he experiences and that results in the art he creates.

The works of architecture in this era stop responding to a constructed story, and become facts without past or future, the present without consequences.[13]​.

Within this new formal parameter, the concept of infinity is introduced into architecture.[14] Baroque architecture is presented as a material expression of the dynamism of a space since, unlike previous orders, it is subject to the action of time. Architecture is no longer allusive to an entity foreign to man, eternal and impalpable, but is becoming a discipline that responds to everyday life and constantly reflects man's perspective on the world around him.

The main premise of the baroque architect is to understand his space, carrying out a juxtaposition between plasticity, volumetry and decorative elements that results in its conquest.

The Baroque is spatial liberation, it is mental liberation from the norms of treatise writers, from conventions, from elemental geometry and from everything static, it is also liberation from symmetry and the antithesis between internal space and external space. [15]​.

Spain

In Spain, the affirmation of the Baroque encountered difficulties due to the economic decline of the reign of Philip III. In the second half of the century, Philip II had ordered the construction of the important complex of the Monastery of El Escorial, built mostly according to the project of Juan de Herrera (1530-1597). Herrera is also responsible for the project of the Cathedral of Valladolid, which reinforced the concept of the central axis and which served as a model for the Cathedral of Mexico.

Progressively, the Spanish architecture of the century evolved towards the Baroque style, although it did not leave any significant examples. Most of the baroque influences were collected in an exclusively decorative way, especially in the churches. This language, which was quickly understandable even by the least educated segment of the population, was successfully exported to the American colonies.

Among the most important religious buildings of the century in Spain, we can highlight the Collegiate Church of San Isidro in Madrid, begun in 1629, the church of Santa María Magdalena "Iglesia de Santa María Magdalena (Granada)") in Granada (begun in 1677 with a longitudinal plan derived from buildings with this layout in Ancient Rome) and the Basilica of the Virgen de los Desamparados in Valencia, with an elliptical plan.

The penetration of the Baroque into its Italian architectural forms (complicated floor plans, movement of facades, abundant decoration that creates contrasts of light) is going to be slow. The presence of the religious ideology of the Counter-Reformation and the prestige of the monarchy of Philip II weighed on the art of the time: sobriety, simplicity and uniformity were preferred. There is an evident poverty of materials – brick, mud and plaster – along with a purification of lines – in the style of El Escorial. As well as a poor development of movement in plans and elevations; the straight line is preferred to the curve; There is a predominance of the Church with a single nave with chapels between buttresses - type of the Church of the Gesù of the Jesuits. The facades express the same simplicity of plans: "Of an abstract spirit, the palaces, churches and convents have facades with smooth walls based on large, slightly highlighted rectangles and interiors of diaphanous whiteness in which only the decorations of geometric squares and triangles of the vaults are clearly cut out, resulting in serious and calm sets for those who contemplate them from the outside or penetrate the interior."[25]

We have examples of this type of architecture in the Collegiate Church of San Isidro in Madrid (built by a Jesuit: it has a Latin cross plan similar to that of the Gesù, or San Andrés de Mantua by Alberti); the church of the Encarnación (Madrid); the Palace of Santa Cruz "Palacio de Santa Cruz (Madrid)") (today the Ministry of Foreign Affairs "Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Spain)"), the Casa de la Villa de Madrid, the Plaza Mayor of Madrid, the city of Lerma "Lerma (Burgos)") (Burgos); the Buen Retiro palace. These last five buildings follow the line called "Escurialense style", characterized by the sobriety of lines, compact volumes and quadrangular towers at the corners, with pyramidal roofs, spiers at the upper vertices and black slate tiles. At this time, some characteristic urban concepts of Spain stand out: the main squares. These are almost closed urban spaces, conceived as centers of religious-political spectacles—processions, autos-da-fe organized by the Inquisition, preachings, royal receptions. These squares are made up of different blocks of buildings arranged regularly, connected to the outside through passages covered by arches that lead to the peripheral streets. The most famous is the Plaza Mayor in Madrid.

The architecture becomes more complex. First, the decorative forms of the Italian Baroque penetrate – giant and Solomonic order columns, mobility of planes on the facades, among other elements – and later the spatial forms, with oval floor plans and concave-convex facades full of dynamism. Of the first group, the façade of the Granada Cathedral stands out - the work of Alonso Cano, arranged as a triumphal arch of three streets covered by semicircular arches -, the Basílica del Pilar de Zaragoza "Cathedral basílica de Nuestra Señora del Pilar (Zaragoza)") and the Clock Tower, by Domingo de Andrade, in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela.

During the century the construction of buildings accelerated, and the full assimilation of Italian spatial forms stands out, in the style of Borromini and Bernini, in works such as the Church of San Marcos "Iglesia de San Marcos (Madrid)") and the Royal Basilica of San Francisco el Grande, in Madrid; the Puerta de los Hierros #Puerta_de_los_Hierros "Cathedral of Santa María (Valencia)") of the Cathedral and the Basilica of the Virgen de los Desamparados, in Valencia; or the Church of the Pilgrim Virgin, in Pontevedra. They are constructions in which the complexity of their plans stands out, with games of curves and countercurves, a combination of oval, tangent and secant shapes, as well as elevations in which the domes, vaults and other structural elements reveal great formal sophistication.

Additionally, the cased domes created by Francisco Bautista in the century stand out: a double dome system in which the intrados, made of wood and plaster, is separated from the exterior, generating an intermediate hollow space that produces a greater effect of height and monumentality. Being lighter, they allow the creation of more comfortable interior spaces.

On the other hand, the architecture of the century increases the ornamental tendency to limits never achieved; This style is called churrigueresco, after the name of the family with this surname that produced greater works. It is a decoration of accumulating shapes in certain places of the building – doors, facade, etc.; They stand out for their monumentality and showiness, compared to the rest of the building with more sober lines. The Anava and Calatrava schools in Valladolid and the Plaza Mayor in Salamanca stand out. Pedro Ribera's are the Toledo Bridge in Madrid, and the Madrid Hospice. Other buildings of this style are the Palacio de San Telmo in Seville and the façade of the Obradoiro of the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, made by Casas y Novoa and which replaced the previous Romanesque one; It is a monumental façade structured like a grandiose triumphal arch in various depth planes (up to three) and great verticality.

Another complication of the Spanish Baroque is found in the spaces created to accommodate religious images such as: relics, tabernacle, sacristies and images of great devotion: theatrical effects come to combine in the use of space, indirect light and of strange origin, painting, sculpture, etc. They are small places in which baroque style explodes in its greatest degree of complexity and theatricality. Highlights include the Transparente of the Toledo Cathedral (by Narciso Tomé), the dressing room and tabernacle of the Cartuja del Paular, or the Tabernacle of the Cartuja of Granada (Francisco Hurtado Izquierdo). Another of the great schools of Spanish Baroque is the one founded at the beginning of the century by Francisco Hurtado Izquierdo, in Priego de Córdoba. In which the Sánchez de Rueda brothers, Juan de Dios Santaella, Francisco Javier Pedraxas, Remigio del Mármol and José Álvarez Cubero participated successively.

England

The architectural studies carried out in Italy by the stage designer Inigo Jones and the young Earl of Arundel constituted an initial impulse that paved the way for a fundamental reorientation of English architecture, which was still trapped in late medieval and mannerist forms. The Queen's House"), in Greenwich "Greenwich District (London)"), highlights the abrupt change in trends. The queen's palace consists of two rectangular blocks joined together by a bridge, connecting it with what was the Greenwich Hospital, today known as the Old Royal Naval College, declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Above the padded ground floor rises the piano nobile, the noble floor, which opens to the garden through a large gallery with Doric columns. Apart from Jones there were very few renowned architects in this period, but among them is Isaac de Caus, who built Wilton House, with its elegant and lavish box-shaped rooms called The cube and The Double Cube.

Without a doubt, if there is an English architect who stands out for the mastery of his works, it is Sir Christopher Wren, who managed to impose Roman classicism in England. In 1666, after the great fire of London, he was summoned along with his colleagues to present proposals for the reconstruction and urbanization of what was one of the most populated cities on earth. The impressive Saint Paul Cathedral, whose silhouette is unmistakable on the city skyline, and 51 other churches are the work of master Wren. The expansion of Hampton Court Palace by order of William III of England was also carried out by him between 1689 and 1692.

John Vanbrugh and Nicholas Hawksmoor gave Wren's style even more monumental and, above all, more picturesque and theatrical dimensions. Starting in 1699 they were in charge of the construction of the imposing Castle Howard in North Yorkshire. The enclosure entre cour et jardin (between patio and garden) consists of a wing of rooms similar to a corridor in whose center the living room open to the garden and the large square room open to the patio stand out. In 1715 and 1717 respectively they published the two volumes of the Vitruvius Britannicus, with engravings of classical British buildings and the translation of the Quatro libri dell'architettura by Andrea Palladio, which caused a new revolutionary change: Neo-Palladianism. This trend aimed at a return to the "noble and true rules" of Antiquity as Palladio and Inigo Jones had interpreted them. The main protagonist of this movement was Lord Burlington, an art expert who, with his Chiswick House, created a building with striking resemblance to the works of Palladio. Finally, it is worth highlighting other beautiful works of British Baroque that materialize in the residence of the Dukes of Devonshire, known as Chattsworth in Derbyshire, England, by the architect William Talman "William Talman (architect)") in 1694; without forgetting of course the monumental Blenheim Palace built in 1710 by the aforementioned John Vanbrugh, for the Duke of Marlborough on behalf of Queen Anne.

Mexico

Main article: New Spain Baroque Architecture.

The main disseminators of the Baroque in New Spain — a territory that included, among other countries, Mexico — were Spanish architects who built, for the most part, churches in the viceregal cities. Among the best-known examples is the Metropolitan Cathedral of Mexico City, designed by several Spanish and New Spain architects.

There are certain characters that give personality to the New Spain Baroque, both in the composition of the buildings and in the formal aspect. The most notable are the following:

The genesis of baroque architecture begins in Italy, with such determining figures as Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Francesco Borromini.

In Spain, baroque architecture will be dominated by the taste for disornamentation and sobriety that the Herrerian style had introduced, with important buildings in which a measured and almost classical style prevails.

In America, after the Spanish conquest, the language of the baroque developed significantly, enriching itself with the workmanship and concepts of pre-Columbian architecture and art, such as the extensive use of bright colors, with the Mexican, Peruvian and Cuban baroque especially standing out.

In Germany and Austria, the Italian inspiration combined with the French will create buildings of great decorative exuberance, especially in the interiors, with abrupt luminosity, which will give way to the Rococo style (Rococo is defined by the taste for luminous, soft and clear colors).

In England balance and austerity predominate.