The stone house
In the area where Paleozoic materials dominate, slate "Slate (rock)", limestone and eruptive materials - granite and neis, so abundant in these sectors - are used for construction. Where secondary and tertiary materials predominate, limestone and sandstone are used. The stone can be arranged one on top of the other, squared (ashlar) or unsquared; without any type of cement that joins them (dry or loose stone) or with a cement (masonry) that can be mud, mud mixed with lime, lime alone or mortar "Mortar (construction)").
The area of the stone house extends from Galicia and the León Mountains, Asturias, Cantabria, the Basque Mountains, the Pyrenees and Pre-Pyrenees and most of Catalonia and the Balearic Islands and continues through Valencia and Murcia, the Andalusian Mediterranean coast and Extremadura.
In Galicia and the León Mountains, one of the most primitive types of house is preserved, the pallaza, a permanent pastoral dwelling that houses a family with livestock, made of masonry or dry stone, which is extraordinarily reminiscent of the constructions inside the citanias.[2] Otherwise, Galician houses are built with large granite ashlars or with masonry. The two-slope roofs are usually made of slate "Slate (rock)") in Lugo and curved tile in the rest of Galicia. Each of them generally has: of scattered constructions such as a threshing floor (workplace), straw hut, bread oven and granary, stone granary on a masonry base. Particularly in the century, large houses with a high social tone were built, but without fundamentally differing from the indicated features; They are the so-called pazos.
The stone houses of the Leonese mountains present transitional characters between the Galician and Asturian houses. Very primitive forms are found in Riaño "Riaño (León)"), single-story houses, made of stone masonry joined with mud. The gabled roofs with curved tiles have a steep slope and are supported by upright beech wood feet.
In Asturias the house takes the exterior layout of the stairs from Galicia, and from Cantabria the greater importance given to sunrooms and eaves. The walls are generally made of masonry. The most primitive and simple forms are represented by the cow huts of the high Asturian brañas. They are temporary rooms, generally rectangular in plan. They have a single floor, and the roofs are made of slate covered with grass. The interior, in a single piece, must serve as a stable and a home. In the high peaks and headwaters of the Cantabrian valleys there are also somewhat more developed permanent rooms, often with two floors with an external staircase. It is a fundamentally livestock house. The ground floor is used as stables and the upper floor is used as a room. There are also peasant houses in Asturias of a somewhat higher social category, with a rectangular floor plan, always two floors and with a certain development of the arcades and sunrooms. In general, they are usually accompanied by the granary with an almost square plan, made of stone and wood. Of a similar type, but with an ashlar façade and arcades with arches, are the so-called Asturian and Cantabrian noble houses. Wrought iron balconies and shields on the facades are common there.
From Cangas de Onís, continuing through Liébana and up to Encartaciones, modest masonry homes are common, with a rectangular floor plan and arranged in height with two floors and an attic.
Within the Meseta there are some enclaves of houses built with stone. We must mention the pastoral house of the Central System, southern slope of the Sierra de Guadarrama, from Somosierra "Somosierra (Madrid)") to San Vicente de Toledo "Sierra de San Vicente (Sistema Central)"), Sierra de Malagón and Parameras de Ávila. They are very simple houses, with a single floor, made of exposed granite masonry, with a two-slope roof with curved tiles. On the southern plateau, in the eastern moors sector, there are very similar houses, made of limestone masonry, but in which more intense agricultural activity leads to the appearance of a sobrado or attic.
The general characteristic of the Alta Navarra house is its solidity and compact block layout. Built with masonry or ashlar, it has one, two or four-sided slate roofs. In the valleys of the Cantabrian slope, from Vizamo") to Arráiz"), the exterior staircase, the curved red tile roof, and the walls plastered with lime appear as a differentiating feature.
In the Aragonese Pyrenees, between Burguete and Huesca, the cubic house is common, with a highly banked prismatic roof, made of slate or flat tiles with four slopes and two slopes. It normally has three floors for housing and agricultural activities. In the second there is usually a balcony protected by a very projecting eaves. Throughout the Aragonese mountainous area there are simple stone houses, arranged in height with three or four floors, with large voussoirs in the doors and with galleries and balconies running over the main door, covered with two very sharp slopes, built with "Laja (rock)" slabs of slate or wood. Inside they have a cobbled patio.
Towards the east, in the Catalan Pyrenees, the houses of the Aran Valley stand out for their certain originality, with walls made of small slate masonry, covered on two sides of the same material, and generally with two floors. In the rest of the Catalan Pyrenees the houses are small, closed with slate roofs and quite steep slopes, and the walls are made of granite masonry in small blocks. In the Cerdaña depression the structures of the houses are close to those of the pre-Pyrenean mas housing, and they contrast with those of the rest of the Pyrenees due to their larger size and the almost absolute predominance of three floors. They have important complementary constructions that present a dispersed organization. They have a large corral "Corral (livestock)") for the sheep, stables, open and closed porches located around the threshing floor, usually paved.
This type of house appears widespread in the rest of Catalonia, except for the western end of the central Depression. There are two fundamental types: the oldest and richest, larger, built with ashlar or masonry, with three floors and two or three homes, one for the owner and the other or others for the masovers. The second type corresponds to buildings from the 19th century, of much smaller dimensions, but which maintain the three floors, although with only one house. Where vine cultivation predominates, small temporary shelters are common in the middle of the vineyards to store tools, with a round or square plan, built with dry stone and covered with a false dome. They are mainly found in Camp de Tarragona, Bages, Maresme and Empordá.
In the Valencian region there are several types of stone houses. The Valencian farmhouse appears throughout the dry land, consisting of a two-story main body and other auxiliary elements located around a closed patio. The walls are made of masonry and the roof is made of red tiles. The main house is used only for housing and the remaining buildings for the different demands of the agricultural operation, which creates an interesting separation of functions. In Castellón de la Plana, the maset is a rectangular building with a two-slope roof or terrace, intended exclusively for modest secondary housing. In Valencia, the farmhouse constitutes a type of large, agricultural building, with a varied floor plan, sometimes with a closed interior patio and generally two floors. The riu-rau, characteristic of the Alicante marina, is a rectangular building covered on two slopes with curved tiles, with a porticoed gallery on the façade that faces south; It is linked to the cultivation and preparation of grapes for raisins. Finally, on the plain of Vinaroz, Benicarló, Peñíscola, Costa de San Mateo), Elche and Orihuela, there is the whitewashed house, cubic in shape, with a flat roof in the shape of a roof, on one floor and with galleries for drying the harvest. On the other hand, the configuration of rural houses in mountainous areas does not follow a strict order, only that indicated by the orography of the terrain, which causes the peculiar urbanism of some of our towns, with winding alleys, with steep slopes and squares of minimal surface area. It is common to develop the habitat on old settlements, which is why in some cases various construction levels can be guessed, from foundations from the Mozarabic period to post-industrial revolution finishes such as the forge. In this case, the rural house gives greater importance to being a dwelling than to being part of the agricultural process without abandoning it definitively.
In the Balearic Islands, different forms of houses appear on the different islands. While in Ibiza there are cubic, whitewashed houses, practically identical to those mentioned above, in Mallorca the houses are quite similar to those of the mas. In Menorca they are usually built with marés ashlars or masonry and whitewashed, have two floors and two-sloped roofs. Characteristic element is the porch that extends on the main façade below the roof.
In the Murcian area, stone houses of the Valencian farmhouse type appear, and in Almería the house reappears in the shape of a parallelepiped, with a flat roof and a single floor, made of whitewashed masonry, a house that extends throughout Mediterranean Andalusia to Cádiz, penetrates through the interior to Granada and reappears in the Canary Islands.
We find stone houses again at the western end of the Meseta, in Extremadura. In the northern sector, in the Hurdes part, the house built with slate, dry, with a single floor and a flat roof, is the only traditional one in existence. Outside of Las Hurdes, stone is used for constructions of a certain social and economic category. A characteristic architectural element appears: the arch "Arch (architecture)") and the vault. The house usually has a single floor and extends in area.