Granada and Santa Fe Granada

Granada and Santa Fe Granada are 2 cities 11km apart located in Spain. In a historical view but also in an urban morphological context they are very important during the medieval-Renaissance period that we are studying in class. In order to analyze the urban and architecture form of the cities, first we need to point some very important historical data and facts.

As discussed in class Granada which was known as the Emirates of Granada was under Muslim ruler ship. According to history it was on 1492 that, the Emirates of Granada surrendered to the Catholic Spain, during what was called the Reconquista of Al-Andalus, which is of course one of the most important historical times for Granada. From the other side Santa Fe Granada is equally important. During the times of the Reconquista, the War in Granada, the Catholic Spanish army settled in a region called Ojos De Huescar and from this camp they drove out the Muslim rulers. In order for this big achievement they renamed the region Santa Fe Granada, and for Catholic Spain at that time this place was “sacred”, because from this place they unleashed the final attack on the Muslim rulers. From these we can derive the relationship of the historical cores between the 2 cities. Santa Fe Granada with Granada served as “sacred” or better yet very special places for the Spanish Catholic Nobility. From Google Maps and Google Earth we can see the magnificent cathedrals, palaces and so on. The decorations are also impressive. In class we talked about a new wave in architecture that spawned in Spain called Plateresque. Basically is a mixed architecture that encompasses Gothic, Renaissance with a blend of Mudejar. (Mudejar were the Muslim that converted to Catholicism. Firstly, the Catholic rulers allowed the Muslim population to follow their religion but when they saw that the conversion rate was very slow they started to convert them by any mean. Some Muslims left for North Africa, the others remained were converted and these were called Mudejar, still holding though their roots, culture and tradition that was blended also in the architecture). Another point to make is that Santa Fe was built in a grid manner. The reason for this as discussed in class was for better controlling the people, different type of urban space allocation, and another reason why I believe is that during these times cartography or map-making was a science that was advancing very rapidly. Santa Fe was the city that Colombus got the “Ok” from the King to sail for the New World. In my opinion they started adopting the efficiency of maps and coordinates to urban planning. A grid-system resembles a Cartesian systems .That is why in my opinion they started also to use the grid system