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
