Spanish Architecture - Spanish Colonial Architecture

Spanish Colonial Architecture

The combination of the Native American and Moorish decorative influences with an extremely expressive interpretation of the Churrigueresque idiom may account for the full-bodied and varied character of the Baroque in the American colonies of Spain. Even more than its Spanish counterpart, American Baroque developed as a style of stucco decoration. Twin-towered facades of many American cathedrals of the seventeenth century had medieval roots and the full-fledged Baroque did not appear until 1664, when the Jesuit shrine on Plaza des Armas in Cusco was built.

The Peruvian Baroque was particularly lush, as evidenced by the monastery of San Francisco in Lima (1673), which has a dark intricate facade sandwiched between the twin towers of local yellow stone. While the rural Baroque of the Jesuite missions (estancias) in Córdoba, Argentina, followed the model of Il Gesù, provincial "mestizo" (crossbred) styles emerged in Arequipa, Potosí and La Paz. In the eighteenth century, the architects of the region turned for inspiration to the Mudéjar art of medieval Spain. The late Baroque type of Peruvian facade first appears in the Church of Our Lady of La Merced, Lima (1697–1704). Similarly, the Church of La Compañia, Quito (1722–65) suggests a carved altarpiece with its richly sculpted facade and a surfeit of spiral salomónica.

To the north, the richest province of 18th-century New Spain — Mexico — produced some fantastically extravagant and visually frenetic architecture known as Mexican Churrigueresque. This ultra-Baroque approach culminates in the works of Lorenzo Rodriguez, whose masterpiece is the Sagrario Metropolitano in Mexico City (1749–69). Other fine examples of the style may be found in the remote silver-mining towns. For instance, the Sanctuary at Ocotlán (begun in 1745) is a top-notch Baroque cathedral surfaced in bright red tiles, which contrast delightfully with a plethora of compressed ornament lavishly applied to the main entrance and the slender flanking towers.

The true capital of Mexican Baroque is Puebla, where a ready supply of hand-painted glazed tiles (talavera) and vernacular gray stone led to its evolving further into a personalised and highly localised art form with a pronounced Indian flavour.