Catalan Gothic

Catalan Gothic is an artistic style, with particular characteristics in the field of architecture. It occurred under the Crown of Aragon between the 13th and 15th centuries, which places it at the end of the European Gothic period and at the beginning of the Renaissance. The term “Catalan Gothic” is confined to Barcelona and its area of influence (Girona, Northern Catalonia, Balearic Islands, etc.), which has its own characteristics.

Despite its name, Catalan Gothic differs from the Gothics from other parts of Europe. In architecture, it does not seek excessive height, or have highlights in its flying buttresses, and its decoration is sober.

Historical context
The style began because of the wealth generated by the expansion of the Counts of Barcelona and Crown of Aragon, first to the Languedoc and Balearic islands then across the Mediterranean to Sicily, the Kingdom of Naples and the Duchy of Athens. This resulted in a demand for an updating of existing Romanesque buildings and new public buildings as well as a demand for mansions for the newly enriched. The style reached its climax in the 15th century. After the unification of the Crowns of Castile and Aragon, and the discovery of the Americas, Seville became Spain’s major port, to the detriment of Barcelona.

Artistic context
The terms “Gothic style” and “Gothic city” are used in relation to the local time frame. It is not to be confused with Spanish or other Gothic styles, though the latest available technologies were always employed. There are many differences in, for example, the arch, rose window and struts.

In church architecture Catalan Gothic does not strive for great heights, but tends to balance dimensions of width with height, so there are no long sloping roofs so characteristic of central and northern Europe, and its buttresses are as tall as the naves. Buildings also have fewer windows because the Mediterranean light is much stronger than the rest of Europe. Sparsely decorated, they have no figurative motifs on their pillars and no notable intricacy in their vaults.

The main features of Catalan Gothic, compared with the international Gothic, are:

In sculpture and painting the peculiarities of Catalan Gothic are not as marked and as distinctive as either the Italian or Flemish styles. Nevertheless, there are several notable painters, including Ferrer Bassa, Pere Serra, Lluís Borrassà, Bernat Martorell, Lluís Dalmau and Jaume Huguet.

Typology

Church
Religious architecture tends to unify space, which is achieved through two methods: either with slender and thin columns spaced far enough apart to avoid interruption the view of the side ailes, which are often the same height as the nave, or constructing with a single nave of much wider span. The towers, usually one or two, stand out as smooth polygonal prisms (6 sides, 8 sides), and there are no transepts, though churches based on the Templar design, are planned as Greek crosses.

The abutments have two effects in addition to their role in bracing the walls. On the drawing the chapels can be distinguished, and the elevation of the building is continuous and visually smooth on the outside. When these appear on the main facade (usually the West Front), they create a rectangle that frames the doorway and perhaps a rose window.

Palace
The palace, with a larger street wall than other dwellings, is typical of 15th-century bourgeois spaces, the best examples of which are in the Carrer de Montcada in Barcelona’s Ribera district. The building is accessed through a portal and is characterised by a courtyard, which is the centre of the building and contains the main staircase that is either open or half closed.

On the ground floor are the facilities for doing business and there may be an office on a mezzanine. The first floor is reserved for living, with main hall, richly decorated stretching along the facade, sometimes occupying it entirely. The following storey contains service rooms and secondary units. Some palaces have small towers for watching over the city rooftops.

Llotja
During the 15th century the Catalan Gothic was used in civil architecture, best exemplified in the Llotja of Barcelona, built between 1380 and 1392. It consisted of three naves separated by ogival arches resting on columns with beaded and flat roofs built in wood. Many features of the Barcelona Llotja was replaced in the 18th century by a neoclassical style.

Gothic Catalan architecture
The Catalan Gothic architecture included in the cultural movement known as Gothic art that, in turn, comes in a wider context, called Renaissance of the twelfth century. This architectural style extends over a long period of the Middle Ages and varies from one place to another, developing between the middle of the 12th century and beginning of the sixteenth century, marking the end of the medieval period. The first impetus for this new constructive philosophy was given to France, extending to all of Europe in a period known as the great cathedrals.Catalonia experienced moments of prosperity and important conquests between the 12th and 15th centuries. The cities grew and, with the fullness, the constructive fever arrived. Large cathedrals such as those of Girona and Santa Maria del Mar were erected or monasteries such as Santa Maria de Pedralbes. During the Gothic era, not all were religious buildings. From the 13th century to practically the beginning of the 16th, civic equipments, factories, bridges and military equipment were built. One of the most emblematic examples that have survived to this day are the Drassanes of Barcelona.

Religious
etween the 12th and 15th centuries, the Gothic centuries, the Catalan cities recorded an extraordinary expansion, reflecting the moments of prosperity in the country. Majorca, Valencia, Sicily or Sardinia was conquered; Catalan merchants arrived at every corner of the Mediterranean; The country’s politics were articulated around the Catalan-Aragonese monarchy, and patricia and urban bourgeoisie were consolidated. The Catalan language also reached its maximum splendor. At this time, Catalan Gothic architecture developed an original language, perfectly adapted to the natural environment and the cultural traditions of the country.

The conquest of new territories to the Arabs towards the mid-twelfth century gave rise to several buildings in the so-called New Catalonia, made with new and more evolved technical and conceptual approaches to those that had rooted in the counties of the north of the country, the Old Catalonia, where the Romanesque art still was in fullness.

In these buildings, the use of the vault vault was used and an aesthetic was adopted where the influence of the Cistercian architecture is evident. In fact, the great Cistercian monasteries of Poblet, Santes Creus and Vallbona de les Monges are outstanding exponents of the overcoming of the Romanesque style. Even so, it still can not be considered gothic.

Between the end of the 12th century and the beginning of the 13th century, Tarragona and Lleida undertook the construction of the respective cathedrals, large buildings that symbolize the reconstruction and growth of these cities.

The plants are of Romance tradition although they are covered with vault of vault, the gothic vault. In advanced stages of construction, as of the end of the thirteenth century, the cathedrals of Tarragona and Lleida already included elements of Gothic style of fullness, for example, on the facade of the cathedral of Tarragona or the The breathtaking bell tower of the Seu Vella de Lleida.

During the 13th century, the so-called mendicant orders, mainly Franciscans and Dominicans, began to arrive in the Catalan cities. But also others, such as the Carmelites or mercedaris, that is, the order of La Mercè, founded in Barcelona in 1218 by Saint Peter Nolasc. The architecture of the mendicant orders, from which the most important buildings have been lost due to the urban reforms of the nineteenth centuryand other affectations, responds to the specific charisma of these orders, which aspired to live an ideal of poverty. Most of the mendicant churches were initially covered with wooden ceilings supported by diaphragm arches, which were replaced by stone vaults. Likewise, in the cloisters tended to use prefabricated material. On the other hand, the churches of mendicant convents were characterized by the breadth of the ships, apt for preaching and to accommodate crowds, as well as the presence of numerous side chapels, sponsored by individuals, families, unions or corporations.

The great convents of San Francisco (Franciscans) and Santa Caterina (Dominican), as well as those of the Carmelites and Mercedarians, disappear as the main witnesses of the architecture of mendicant orders in Catalan lands, the convents of Sant Domènec de Girona, Sant Domènec de Balaguer and Sant Francesc de Montblanc. A special mention deserves the monastery of Santa Maria de Pedralbes, in Barcelona, of clan nuns (Franciscans). It is a royal foundation and is a precious monastic set that has preserved the original integrity through time, to date.

In 1298 the construction of the Cathedral of Barcelona began, which replaces the previous Romanesque building. Fourteen years later, in 1312, the construction of the Cathedral of Girona began. Both were considered with the model of Narbona, the largest of the gothic cathedrals of Migdia de França. He explains, among other things, the fact that until the 12th century the Catalan dioceses were linked to the narbonesa.

The Cathedral of Girona became one of the most representative and most important buildings of all the Catalan Gothic architecture because instead of taking over three ships, following the initial approach of the headboard influenced by Narbona, it was made with only one ship, of a considerable magnitude: 22 meters wide. The widest ship in all medieval Europe. The decision to finish the Cathedral of Girona with a single ship was a risky and bold decision, which was taken after two consultations with the main architects of the Catalan lands, in the years 1386 and 1416.

The influence of the Cistercian esthetics and the architectural typologies introduced by mendicant orders, as well as the partial assimilation of the French cathedral model, together with all this, with a marked desire for originality, stylistically determined Gothic Catalan architecture of fullness, which was achieved during the first half of the fourteenth century.

During the first decades of the three hundred, the country lived an impressive constructive fever. There were many churches that were renovated or were built on a new floor. In many cases, the works started at this time continued until the fifteenth century and even later.

The most innovative contributions of the full phase of Catalan Gothic architecture were churches that are not cathedrals but which aspired to have a cathedral size. It was churches of three naves such as Santa Maria de Cervera, Santa Maria de Castelló d’Empúries, the Seu of Manresa and especially Santa Maria del Mar, in Barcelona, considered the paradigm of Catalan Gothic architecture.

The church of Santa Maria del Mar, built between 1329 and 1383 and designed by architects Berenguer de Montagut and Ramon Despuig, is a magnificent example of a church hall, where the height of the lateral naves is practically equal to the from the central nave. This characteristic was common to all the Catalan Gothic churches of three ships. Other distinctive features of Catalan Gothic architecture that are perfectly visible in Santa Maria del Mar are sobriety and rationalism.

Composition and sobriety, too, of structures and interior spaces, is evident in the tendency to elevate the side naves to a height almost the same as the central one, to do as large as possible, to the thinning and simplification of the pillars (those of Santa Maria del Mar are eight), to integrate the lateral chapels between the buttresses and minimize the importance of the transept or the cruise, a structure that had a great deal of importance in Romanesque architecture and, on the other hand, is practically nonexistent in Catalan Gothic architecture.

The influence of the architecture of Santa Maria del Mar is evident in the Cathedral of Mallorca, just as these experiments with the typology of three ships influenced the approach of the Cathedral of Tortosa, begun in 1346.

At the beginning of the fullness phase, in the first half of the fourteenth century, the most characteristic typology of Catalan Gothic architecture was achieved, and also the most widespread: the single nave church with the polygonal header and side chapels between the buttresses. The church of Santa Maria dels Turers de Banyoles, the barcelonina of Santa Maria del Pi and the one of the monastery of Santa Maria de Pedralbes, mentioned above, are headed by this type.

This type has continuity during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, beyond the gothic centuries, and can be considered a direct antecedent of the type of counter-reform church spread by the Jesuits. Its rooting in our country is so great that we have seen is projected in the field of cathedral architecture, for example with the adoption of a single ship plan for the Cathedral of Girona.

Another characteristic element of the religious architecture of the Catalan Gothic style are the bell towers, especially those of an octagonal plant, without volume gradation and with a flat finish. It is the typology that represents the bell towers of the monastery of Pedralbes (Barcelona), the churches of Cervera, Balaguer and Santa Maria del Pi (Barcelona) and especially that of the Seu Vella de Lleida.

Featured Architects
Catalan Gothic architecture was uniform in the rest of the territories of the Catalan-speaking Crown of Aragon, mainly Mallorca and Valencia. Jaume Fabre traveled from Mallorca to Barcelona to direct the works of the cathedral of the capital of the Principality. The Majorcan Guillem Morei also developed a very important part of his activity in Girona. The architectural connections between the Barcelona church of Santa Maria del Mar and the Cathedral of Mallorca are many and evident. Guillem Sagrera, undoubtedly the greatest of all the Catalan Gothic architects, was a Mallorcan and worked hard on the island, but also in Perpignan and in Barcelona (and still in Naples). Another distinguished architect, Pere Comte, it was from Girona but focused on the activity in Valencia and projected the fish market of this city taking the model of Mallorca. Similarly, the architect Andreu Julià was both the master builder of the Cathedral of Tortosa and the author of the famous Miquelet, the bell tower of the Cathedral of Valencia. Catalan architects also had a significant presence during the Middle Ages in Naples, Sicily or Sardinia and the island of Malta.

Civil
Gothic architecture, like most ancient architectures, is always well-known and always defined by works of a religious nature, that is, the sacred spaces of the temples and the annexes. There is no doubt that these were, among all the factories, those that achieved a maximum development and received the greatest artistic burden, but did not diverge from secular or civil architecture. On the contrary, they shared forms and solutions both in construction and decoration, and thus both formed a coherent whole. The secular architecture has to be considered a very relevant part of the gothic work, with high quality achievements and a wide typological repertoire, which include from the factories of residential nature and work to bridges or military works,

Within Gothic Europe, architecture has different schools, defined geographically, culturally and politically. Under very concurrent formulations, the architecture, both religious and secular, was developed in the mainland of the Principality and the Valencian Country, as well as the islands of the Balearic Islands. Although it is true that it constitutes a subset between the productions of the so-called Southern or Mediterranean gothic, it also has a marked personality, which extended or influenced in varying degrees on the countries dominated by the Barcelona house, which simultaneously exercised important reverse influences. Catalan Gothic architecture emerged throughout the 13th centuryand it extended to the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries, when it began to decline, not abruptly, but in a progressive isolation that, depending on the circumstances, almost reached the point of departure in the 17th century.

The merger between civil and religious works in Catalan Gothic architecture is not based on a mere stylistic agreement or decorative unit, but there is a congruence of architectural, structural and compositional background in the factories, although these correspond to spaces of nature different In fact, all the architecture was raised based on two fundamental constructive solutions: the vault of creek and the beams often with diaphragm arcades. The buildings that were generated were always a simple volume, with a flat roof for the vaults or roof slightly inclined on the roofs of wood, with interior spaces very free of supports, if in any case converted into external buttresses. The internal environment was open or was divided into ships separated by arches or columns in exceptional temples or boxes. In the building, horizontality predominated, with facades of large flat surfaces where the floodplates were imposed on the gaps in the openings of portals and windows. A severe or contained ornamental load did not disfigure the architectural morphology, but emphasized it with linear resources of cornices or sets of plans and outlines.

The vaults of crevasses and diaphragm arches were adopted throughout the 13th century, despite the construction of a Romanesque root of vaults of barrel, which almost extinguished. The first, from the simplest to the complexes and crashings of the early 15th century, housed both ecclesial ships and small chapels, but also the castellers of Bellver in Mallorca at the turn of the seventh century and the low floors of the great hospitals urban of the turn of the fifteenth century. In the four hundredths, in the manner of the chapters, they were used in the contracting space of the majestic Majorca and Valencian markets, until reaching the maximum achievement in the room of the Barons del Castell Nou in Naples. With the ships covered with embalments, especially on diaphragm arches, many types of buildings were built, from the simplest to the most opulent, both rural and urban areas. These bodies formed churches, dormitories or monastic refectories, as old as those of Poblet and Santes Creus, or the later ones of Pedralbes and Vallbona de les Monges. They also shaped a crowd of palatine rooms or simply castles, among which there are examples of examples in the fortresses of Peratallada, Vall-de-Rouures or Verdú and in the complexes of Barcelona, Majorca and Perpignan. In addition to the hospital halls of Barcelona or Vic, the shipyards of the Barcelona shipyards and the Grau de València, the representative rooms of the store and the house of the City of Barcelona, as well as so many wineries, stores or rooms of all kinds always of a corporate or stately nature.

The main monuments of Gothic secular architecture are found, of course, in the great cities of the Catalan Countries and constitute civic facilities, expression of the municipal, corporate or corporate powers that they have, trade power, royal authority and military capability, expressed in ramparts or arsenals. In this sense stand out the headquarters of the municipal governments, houses of the city or the city, with the greatest expression in Barcelona, where during the last third of the fourteenth century a noble building was built, dominated by a large rectangular room covered with flat and sustained beams for round-diaphragm arches, the Saló de Cent. The facade that overlooks Carrer de la Ciutat magnified itself with elaborate ornamentation and careful sculptural details, partly by the well-known master Arnau Bargués in the turn of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In the same road, in the section known by Carrer del Bisbe, the main frontis of the Casa del General or Palau de la Generalitat. Here, a curved arc portal was crowned by a railing with a splendid central medallion representing the legend of Saint George, sculpted by Pere Joan around 1416-1418. The palace was built in the manner of the great patrician houses, specifically for two parallel bodies related to a slim arcade gallery on the main floor, where a solemn staircase was reached. It also counted on a small chapel carrada, of ornamentation highly worked in facade.

The boxes, which are representative of the power of the commercial corporations that raised them, are the profane buildings where Gothic architecture has achieved the most complete achievements, which are completely unique in the European landscape. The most important are those of Barcelona, Ciutat de Mallorca, Perpinyà and Valencia. Those of Catalonia, built in the second half of the fourteenth century, have a wide roofed room supported by slab supported by slender, high-altitude arcades. Both the Balearic and Valencian are factories of the fifteenth centurymuch more elaborately architectural and sculptural, consisting of a single block, occupied by a large hall of vaults of creeks generated by helical columns, and enclosed by canvases with large windows of elaborate tracery. Less singular architecturally were the hospitals established in numerous populations, often with a mixed civil and religious nature, which according to importance developed constructive programs of more or less ambition. Among these facilities are those of Lleida, Montblanc or Solsona of the fifteenth century and built in the manner of the patrician houses of four wings around a patio. Another typology had been developed since the fourteenth centuryor earlier, consisting of high-rise ships and diaphragm arches, which could be simply a single room or organized in wings around a patio as in the large complex of the Santa Creu barcelona, which began to work around 1400 and unfinished, where the large rooms were raised above a ground floor covered with flat brick vaults and with a beautiful cloister around.

Another of the largest gothic creations, exceptional in the Mediterranean context, although with an analogous installation at the Grau de València, it is the arsenal or shipyard of Barcelona. At the beginning it was formed by a vast open courtyard that, surrounded by a wall with towers to the angles, was occupied by ephemeral installations in the interior. In this space began to be built in the fourteenth century, and to cover everything, a series of parallel ships connected by large arches with pillars that simultaneously receive diaphragm bows supporting the roofs on a double slope They rhythmically clear the space, with a great plastic effect. The original site was subject to successive enlargements since the fifteenth centuryand until the 17th and 18th centuries, which always followed the initial Gothic formulation. It should also be mentioned that the sovereign had in the different cities of his domains more or less stable and sumptuous residences, although the main ones were in Barcelona and they were called the Palacio Real Mayor y Menor, a result of the transformation of Romanesque constructions or much older Both of them had important contributions of Gothic architecture, such as the spacious and solemn chambers of decoration, configured with half-pointed diaphragm bows and nowadays the so-called Tinell, built with Pere el Cerimoniós between 1350 and in 1370 by master Guillem Carbonell.

Urban housing was developed in different residential typologies, from the simplest to the singular and monumental patrician houses, which became emblematic of Gothic civil works. These houses differed significantly from the rest of urban construction, made up of an overwhelming predominance, both in the larger nuclei and the small towns, of humble homes made of a single block of rectangular ground plan and parallel or perpendicular arrangement in the street, with two or three elevation plants. The most enriched ones were embellished with the characteristic rounded portals and some ornate ogival windows. Very different were the mentioned patrician residences, exceptionally constituted by different building blocks that up to four were articulated around a central courtyard, a monumental stairway leading to the first or main floor. At this level were elegant arcade galleries, which related the different wings and gave the courtyards a unique beauty. This residential type is found in formulations of a Gothic style full of baroque, in all the major Catalan cities and in those of other Mediterranean countries subject to the influence of the house of Barcelona. Among the most outstanding exponents there are the houses of the streets of Lledó and Barcelona other Mediterranean countries subject to the influx of the Barcelona home. Among the most outstanding exponents there are the houses of the streets of Lledó and Barcelona other Mediterranean countries subject to the influx of the Barcelona home. Among the most outstanding exponents there are the houses of the streets of Lledó and BarcelonaMontcada, the Casa Julià de Perpinyà, the so-called Palacio Real de Vilafranca del Penedès, the houses of the Almirall and Bou in Valencia, the Palacio Abatellis in Palermo or the Bellomo Palace in Siracusa.

All show a common formalization of the main façade, framed by a rectangle, where the plains dominated the gaps and the tendency to symmetry never came to be imposed. The stoned stone gave nobility to the wall, without much more decoration than some sculptural elements in the openings. The ground floor was solemnized by the velvet round portal, accompanied by few openings. The noble floor always featured a series of two, three and three crowned windows, exceptionally, four false arches cut into a lintel supported by columns. Above and below the large slope of the roof there was a gondola or porch with pillars or arches. Very often at one end the body of a tall tower emerged above the ridge. The roof of Arab roof tiled, with roasted chromaticity,

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