Neo-Mudéjar

The Neo-Mudéjar is a type of Moorish Revival architecture. In Spain, this architectural movement emerged as a revival of the Mudéjar style. It appeared in the late 19th century in Madrid, and soon spread to other regions of the country. Such architects as Emilio Rodríguez Ayuso perceived the Mudéjar art as characteristical and exclusive Spanish style. They started to construct buildings using some of the features of the ancient style, as horseshoe arches, arabesque tiling, and the use of the abstract shaped brick ornamentations for the façades.

In Spain, the neo-Mudejar style was vindicated as a national style, because it was based on a properly Hispanic style. Architects like Emilio Rodríguez Ayuso or Agustín Ortiz de Villajos saw in Mudejar art something uniquely Spanish and began to design buildings using features of the old style, including abstract brick shapes and horseshoe arches .

However, what historiography has traditionally considered as neo-Mudejar, are in many cases works of neo- Arab style, since they use Caliphate , Almohad and Nasrid elements, the only Mudejar aspect being the use of exposed brick.

Frequently it has been considered to the bullring of Madrid of Rodriguez Ayuso and Alvarez Capra of 1874 like the beginning of neomudéjar, that would be followed by other architects like Enrique María Repullés and Vargas , Joaquín Rucoba , Augusto Font Carreras , José Espelius Anduaga , Felipe Arbazuza or Aníbal González.

History
The first examples of the Neo-Mudéjar style were Madrid's (now demolished) Plaza del Toros (a bullring) built in 1874 and the Aguirre School, designed by Rodríguez Ayuso, and Casa Vicens by Gaudí. The style became then a strong, almost "compulsory" reference for the construction of bullfight rings all around Spain and beyond the borders, to Portugal and the Hispanoamerican countries.

In Madrid it became one of its most representative styles, not only for public buildings, like Escuelas Aguirre or the Bullring of Las Ventas but also for housing. The use of cheap materials, mainly brick for exteriors, made it a popular style in the new neighborhoods.

Neo-Mudéjar was often combined with Neo-Gothic by architects as Francisco de Cubas, Antonio María Repullés y Vargas or Francisco Jareño. After the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929 in Seville, another stream of Neo-Mudéjar features appeared: the Andalusian Architectural Regionalism. The Plaza de España (Seville) or the ABC newspaper headquarters (Madrid) are examples of this new style that combined traditional Andalusian architecture with Mudéjar features.

Examples

Churches
The neo-Mudejar style had to compete with other styles also claimed as national styles, such as neo-Gothic or neo- Romanesque , both preferred by the ecclesiastical authorities due to the profusion with which Romanesque and Gothic were used during the Middle Ages for the construction of emblematic religious works. Faced with these "Christian" styles, the Neo-Mudejar Arabizing was not the majority chosen by the Catholic Church , although a few churches were built in this style in Madrid, such as the Church of Santa Cristina (1906), the San Matías Church of Hortaleza (1877), the Church of La Paloma (1912), by Álvarez Capra, or the Church of San Fermín de los Navarros (1891) by Carlos Velasco and Eugenio Jiménez Correa.

Outside of Madrid there is the Church of San José de Pinto , made in 1891 ; the reform of the cover of the Cathedral of Teruel , made in 1909 , the Church of San Benito and Santo Domingo de Castilleja de Guzmán , built in 1923 , or the church of the town of El Temple , in the province of Huesca, projected in 1947.

Squares of bulls
The first example of the neomudéjar style is the old bullring of Goya in Madrid (which was where the Palacio de Deportes is now), designed by Emilio Rodríguez Ayuso and Lorenzo Álvarez Capra . The style was thereafter almost mandatory in bull rings throughout Spain . Notable examples are: the bullring of La Malagueta , in Málaga , the work of Joaquín Rucoba of 1874 ; that of El Bibio , in Gijón , completed in 1888 according to the design of Ignacio de Velasco ; the Plaza de Zamora , designed by Martín Pastells and Papell ; the squares of Las Arenas and Monumental de Barcelona, the work of Ignasi Mas i Morell and Domènec Sugrañes i Gras ; the bullring of Granada ( 1928 ), by architect Ángel Casas; that of Caudete , built by Juan Arellano and Francisco Albalat Navajas in 1910 ; the current Plaza de las Ventas in Madrid , considered as the maximum exponent of bullfighting neomudéjar; or those of Cartagena , El Puerto de Santa María , Quintanar de la Orden , Oviedo , Santa Cruz de Tenerife , Almeria , Almendralejo , Villanueva del Arzobispo , Villena , Teruel and Albacete . In Portugal highlights the Small Field Bullring .

Railway stations
The railway sector absorbed the bulk of infrastructure investment in Spain between the mid-nineteenth century and the Civil War. Among the stations built in Neomudéjar language highlights the Toledo station , designed by Narciso Clavería and completed in 1920 . Other examples are the Plaza de Armas station in Seville ( 1901 ), the Huelva-Término station (1880), the Aranjuez station and the Jerez de la Frontera station .

In Aragon the neomudéjar had a wide development, due in part to its own Mudejar tradition, showing in Teruel some of its maximum creations, such as the Staircase of the Station , work of the engineer José Torán de la Rad , from 1921.

Official buildings
General Military Academy
City Council of Jaén (1899)
Town hall of Illescas
House of Post and Telegraph (Málaga)
Zaragoza Post Office
Spas, casinos and theaters

The consolidation of liberal-bourgeois society during the nineteenth century led to the construction of new spas and the restoration of existing ones. During the Restoration period there was an expansion in the areas dominated by the new bourgeoisie, mainly in Catalonia , Cantabria and the Basque Country , which led to the construction of gandes hotels associated with spas.  Of the many that were built, they used the Neomudéjar aesthetic: the Gran Spa Vichy Catalán de Caldas de Malavella , by Cayetano Buigas (1898); the Oriental Baths of Barceloneta , by Augusto Font Carreras ; the Balneario de San Lucas , in Mula (1903); and the Balneario de Lanjarón (1928).

The casinos also lived a golden age with the establishment of the liberal-bourgeois state, being the meeting point of the aristocracy and bourgeoisie of the time. The Casino Gaditano , the old Casino de Toledo , the Casino de Teruel and the Granja de Torrehermosa are neomudéjares.

Between the theaters they emphasize the Great Theater Falla of Cádiz , work of Adolph Morals of the Rivers and the Madrilenian ones Theater Alhambra, already disappeared, and Theater Maria Guerrero , both work of Agustín Ortiz de Villajos and of grenadine inspiration, more neoárabes that neomudéjar.

Factories
The growth of Madrid and the arrival of the railroad made the south of the city become a zone of expansion and industrial district, hosting loading docks, sidings, factories, warehouses and other manufacturing and industrial facilities, many of which would be raised in neomudéjar style, such as the El Águila Beer Factory (1912), the work of Eugenio Jiménez Correa , the old PACISA Cookie Factory attributed to Luis Martínez Díaz , the Madrid Slaughterhouse of Luis Bellido , the new facilities of the Real Fábrica de Tapestries by José Segundo de Lema or the old branch of the Caja de Ahorros y Monte de Piedad in Madrid by Fernando Arbós y Tremantí , which today houses the cultural center the lit house .

Also in Madrid was located the defunct Gal Factory (1915), by Amos Salvador Carreras with a nine-sided irregular polygon plant. Outside of Madrid, the also disappeared Azucarera de Marcilla (1899) in Navarre stand out ; La Ceramo de Benicalap (1889), by Josep Ros i Surió ; the San José de Toledo flour factory ; and the Cádiz cigar factory , an irregular building with a glazed ceramic roof, now converted into the Congress and Exhibition Center of Cádiz.

A unique example is the architectural complex called Presa El Salto de El Carpio .

Housing
The Neomudéjar immediately became a very popular style in the hamlet of the new neighborhoods of Madrid , sometimes manifesting in its most basic and modest appearance, others with a deployment of much more elaborate compositional media, as is the case of bourgeois collective housing work of the Marquis of Cubas or Francisco Jareño . The main material, the brick , was not expensive and neither was labor, which reproduced the models from one dwelling to another. Much of this heritage, unprotected, has been demolished by real estate pressure since many of them are humble dwellings of one or two heights. However, there are many notable examples in the neighborhoods of the outskirts of Madrid and scattered throughout the province.

It is also worth mentioning the Neomudejar courtyard, more concretely neo-Nazari, of the Peche family manor house , located in the town of Fregenal de la Sierra ( Badajoz ).

Other examples
From Madrid we can mention, among them, the Canal de Isabel II tower on Santa Engracia street, and the Aguirre schools on the north side of the Retiro Park . In Toledo , the School of Industrial Arts of Arturo Mélida , which retains its original facade inspired by the Toledo Mudejar .

In Andalusia , the Cádiz Falla Grand Theater , the Mudéjar Pavilion of María Luisa Park in Seville (which houses the Museum of Popular Arts and Customs of Seville) and some wineries in Jerez de la Frontera stand out

Other important buildings are the Laredo Palace in Alcalá de Henares or the auditorium of the University of Barcelona .

Source From Wikipedia