Contenido

El predominio de algunos materiales de construcción fundamenta la clasificación de las casas rurales españolas propuesta por Bolós y Capdevila") (1978). Se distinguen en ella cuatro grandes grupos, distribuidos del modo que se resume a continuación. La casa de piedra, cuya composición concreta (granito, gneis, pizarra "Pizarra (roca)"), caliza, arenisca) depende del ámbito litológico en el que se encuentre, se extiende por una franja periférica que comprende Galicia, las montañas de León, Asturias, Cantabria, las montañas vascas, el Pirineo y el Prepirineo, la mayor parte de Cataluña y Baleares, Valencia, Murcia, el litoral mediterráneo andaluz y Extremadura. La casa de barro (barro crudo secado al sol, como el adobe y el tapial, o barro cocido, como el ladrillo y la teja) se halla generalizada en un dominio predominantemente interior, que abarca las dos Mesetas, el valle medio del Ebro, la huerta de Valencia y Murcia y la campiña del Guadalquivir. La casa de madera ha perdido importancia, por los riesgos que entraña, y se halla reducida a la modalidad entramada (en la que el armazón de ese material se rellena con fábrica) del País Vasco, de la Alcarria y de las tierra pinariegas de las sierras de Gredos y Guadarrama y del Sistema Ibérico. En el apartado final de las casas rurales construidas con otros materiales se incluyen las chozas hechas con recursos vegetales y la cuevas, de variada localización, que constituyen las expresiones más pobres del conjunto.

[1]​.

Internal organization

The internal organization of the rural house, closely related to the way of life of its inhabitants, is expressed in the "Plan (architecture)" plan. The analysis of the plan allows us to know how the functionally differentiated interior spaces are distributed and relate to each other and in this way classifications have been established, almost always indebted to that proposed by Demangeon") in the 1920s, which distinguishes two main modalities: the block house, where all the functional spaces are under the same roof, which can be elementary or with elements arranged at ground level, longitudinally or transversally, or in height and the patio house, closed or open, where these spaces are dissociated.

It is quite common, as happens in Spain, for several of these types of houses to coexist in the same area, in the same way that the different economic and social conditions with which they are associated coexist. In Galicia, for example, there are elementary houses, among which are the pallozas, of remote origin and an elliptical plan, which also appear in the Asturian area, in which an interior partition separates the parts dedicated to housing and stables, along with the more widespread two-story house, connected by an external staircase and functionally differentiated, and the large noble houses or manors, which include the different buildings dedicated to the stately mansion and the agricultural and agricultural outbuildings. rancher And to all this we must add the dissociated elements (granaries, haystacks) that complete the panorama of the Galician rural house.

In general terms and without forgetting the real complexity that appears in the most reliable considerations of a regional and regional nature, some trends can be pointed out in the geographical distribution of the different types of internal organization (and therefore, of "Floor (architecture) plans") of Spanish rural houses. This is the case, for example, with the predominance of block houses with several floors, generally dedicated, in ascending order, to the stable, the dwelling and the granary, which is evident in the northern half of Spain. As we move towards the south, along with the block houses, dissociated houses of one or two floors appear, with corrals "Corral (livestock)") or more or less large and generally closed patios, which constitute a characteristic component of the La Mancha and Andalusian landscape.

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.

The mud house

The mud is used in two different ways, raw dried in the sun, as in the case of adobe or rammed earth, or cooked in the form of brick and tile. The adobes, when placed one on top of the other, are welded together and constitute a single mass. In the case of rammed earth, this dough is obtained using large wooden molds. While brick and tile is a material that has spread everywhere thanks to its possibility of transport, adobe and rammed earth are limited to those points where lithology offers suitable materials. We find the clays of the Duero valley, the middle Ebro valley, the orchards of Valencia and Murcia, the Guadalquivir countryside and a good part of the Plateau exploited in this sense. The area is large and within it the houses present a series of types with clear local ties.

The house in the Duero Valley is made of mud, adobe and sometimes brick. It is always a single storey, with some frequency supported on a plinth "Plinth (construction)") of one or two meters of boulders cemented with mud. Brick houses constitute the richest form of construction; It extends across important sectors of the northern Plateau. Brick is often imported, it is used particularly in corners and fittings, doors and windows, skirting boards and cornices, and the rest is built with gravel mixed with earth, sand and lime. They are normally low and wide houses, with a maximum of two floors.

On the León Plateau all the houses are made of mud, with a base of boulders also covered with mud or rarely with lime; On top, adobe or rammed earth is used.

On the Navarrese banks of the Ebro, the most common construction materials are brick, adobe and rammed earth. The houses are often whitewashed, and the roofs have one or two slopes, the most important being four. They are open houses, in which balconies and galleries abound.

In the middle Ebro valley, the brick house has a patio around which the different rooms are arranged. The galleries, eaves and projections are characteristic. From Zaragoza to Calatayud, including the Monegros and the lower basin of the Segre, houses made of mud and masonry are common. In the Lérida sector there is more brick. The houses are rectangular, arranged in height, with two or three floors; the first two of masonry and the upper one based on brick pilasters and the holes covered with reed and earth. The roof has a slight inclination, often on a single slope, with curved ocher or brown tiles. The new irrigation in this sector has caused a certain concentration of the population and the formation of new nuclei of houses built with pebbles and adobe, with a single floor, flat roof and whitewashed, of a very simple nature.

The La Mancha dwelling made of rammed earth or rammed earth is generally single-story, wide, with ashlar lintels and a two-slope roof and curved tile. Projecting bars on the windows are common.

Andalusian houses point to the Muslim tradition in their small size. They often have more than two floors and are covered with Arabic tiles on one or two slopes. They do not always have a patio; When it appears it presupposes a construction of some importance. The exterior is completely whitewashed, sometimes even the roof. It is fundamentally a residential house. In lower Andalusia, in the province of Córdoba "Province of Córdoba (Spain)"), the houses are low in height, one or two floors; In the upper one there are projecting bars on the windows with a tiled roof. The small patio paved with pebbles is common. The farmhouses have isolated buildings that house housing for farmers and owners, as well as the premises necessary for exploitation arranged around a large patio. The buildings are generally made of exposed brick. In a large part of Almería, the house with a roof is preserved, low and small, generally without an interior patio, with small windows close to the roof. In the Alpujarras, next to the dry stone house is the rammed earth house, with balconies similar to the one in lower Andalusia.

Andalusian influences can be found in the traditional Canarian house and in the southern part of Extremadura. In the south of Extremadura there are single-story brick houses with a vault. In front of the house the hallway is characteristic. The whitewashing is constant.

The Levantine alluvial coastal plain presents a simple, elementary type of habitation, typical of the benign climate and the intensity of the sector's crops: the hut "Barraca (housing)"). This extends throughout the sector, through the Albufera, orchards of Valencia, Orihuela and Murcia and in the north it reaches the Ebro delta. They are rectangular constructions, with adobe walls, poplar wood braces and reeds. Above, the two-sloped roof of reeds and straw forms a very acute angle and advances over the façade in the shape of a wing. The walls are whitewashed. There are different types. The one described corresponds to the orchards; those of the Albufera fishermen are smaller, with dark walls built with peat. The roof almost reaches the ground, and at the back the barracks are rounded. The ones in Murcia and the delta are small and provisional.

The half-timbered house

In reality, there are currently no houses built exclusively of wood on the Peninsula; However, in the Basque Country, Tierra de Pinares and Alcarria, it can be seen from the current structures that wood still has importance or that it had a lot of importance in other times. Wood not only appears in floors, beams, doors and windows, but is part of the exterior body of the building itself. The most used wood is pine oak, beech and chestnut. With it, the so-called framework framework is built, a system of frames filled with masonry, brick, etc.

The typical form of the traditional Basque rural house is the hamlet "Caserío (arquitectura)"), whose primitive form seems to be found in the txabola, a small single-story building built initially exclusively of wood and later with rudimentary frameworks filled with willow and hazel rods. Currently they are temporary rooms in the summer pastures. The hamlet is located throughout the Basque Country. Large building, sometimes for two families, with a rectangular floor plan with three bays, roofs on two slopes or four in the case of stately houses, with quite steep slopes, so curved tiles cannot be used, and slate or beech wood slats are used.

Currently, masonry walls and frameworks are common in the hamlet. Characteristic is the porch in the center of the main façade, which opens through gallery arches or wooden lintels, and a gallery on the upper floor. Within these general characteristics, the Gipuzkoa and Vizcaya farmhouses, with an almost square plan and wide eaves, must be distinguished from the Alava farmhouses, in which certain Castilian influences are marked, such as the reduction of openings and the increase in the thickness of the walls.

In the Gredos, Guadarrama and Sistema Ibérico mountain ranges, in the regions of Las Batuecas, Las Villuercas, La Vera, Valle del Tiétar, Tierra de Pinares and the Picos de Urbión sector, the half-timbered house appears. It usually has two or three stories, and the exterior walls are built with wooden frames filled with brick. Characteristic is the overhanging balcony that covers the entire La Tacada, the slightly inclined roofs built with curved tiles, and the lintels and jambs of monolithic doors and windows. These houses are basically intended for housing.

In the Alcarria, upper Tajo, centered in Brihuega, a type of house appears that also extends across the Plateau between the Henares and the Tajo to the Guadiela, and across the limestone moors of León and even on the southern Plateau in some sectors of La Mancha. It is built with square masonry pillars and masonry walls, generally made of limestone cemented with lime on the ground floor and half-timbered on the upper floor; The roof has two slopes, with curved gray tiles and a rough eave.

Constructions with other materials

Several constructions of little importance due to their construction materials cannot be included in any of the previous sections. These are generally huts built from elements of plant origin. The most notable are located in Toledo and Andalusia. The Toledo huts are found in the fields of crops and have a perfectly conical shape. The construction material is reeds arranged in bundles linked and joined with rammed earth. In Cádiz, in the Barbate River basin and next to the Janda lagoon, there are also very poor huts built with reeds and straw, inhabited by ranchers and fishermen.

In Sierra Morena, on the mountain slopes, there are humble shepherds' homes, with a circular plan and conical roof, built with stakes and earth and covered with cistus.

Within this last group, troglodyte housing of Neolithic origin can be included. The material used is rock in situ. They generally open in rocks that are not very hard and impermeable. They are very frequently found in sectors of tertiary materials: conglomerate, sandstone, marl. They are most numerous in Córdoba "Córdoba (Spain)"), Granada, Almería, Murcia Guadalajara "Guadalajara (Spain)"), Zaragoza, Toledo and Navarra.

The Cordoba caves are located in Iznájar, Calvario and La Antigua slopes. The Granadinas, the most popular, are located in the valley of the Darro River, slopes of the Albaicín and Sacro Monte, the Ahogado ravine and the Genil slopes. Open on the slopes facing south, their doors are made of brick and whitewashed. In Guadix, at the foot of the Sierra Nevada (Sierra Nevada (Spain)), the alluviums of sand and clay in alternating layers cut into a multitude of hills and hills lend themselves well to cave drilling. In Almería they are also very numerous and are located near the capital and in the Almena valley. In Valencia, only people of the lowest social level live in the caves and they are characterized by a special device for the entry of air and light and by being very whitewashed inside and out. In Aragon a type of cave appears that is only half excavated. Caves are also common in Toledo towns, where two types can be seen: some excavated in the hills, like the Andalusian ones, and others open in the plain at a level lower than the surface of the land (Villacañas), in which case an excavated ramp must be built. In Navarra they open in the cliffs. Finally, in Asturias, in Cabrales there are caves intended as a refuge for shepherds and livestock in times of bad weather.