|
MEXICO MAGICO
TRIUMPHS and TRAGEDY... A history of the Mexican people |
CHAPTER IV, The Forefathers (60th part continues...)
By Prof. German Estrada - July 2006 |
BAROQUE YEARS
Native craftsmen, meanwhile, left their imprint on the buildings, above all, on the decorative designs of the façades of church doorway, towers, cupolas, and ceilings. The arched entrance was encircled with statuary, raised work, and engraved decorations which occupied the space on the side of the tower. Figures of the apostles watched from both sides of the doorway, and on top of them was a picture carved in relief of some divine occurrence, with the patron saint displayed prominently alongside of sundry saints who worshiped the Holy Trinity. Angels and celestial cherubs, peering out from their niches, completed the scene.
The Mudejar of Moorish influence shaped Baroque architecture, which aside from its ornate artistry, combined two striking features. The cupola, a cylindrical vault forming part of the ceiling or roof, a symbol of Arab Renaissance, was one. New Spain ripened as “the country of the cupola,” found on churches and public buildings alike in a dazzling display, each boasting its own design and unique decoration. The azulejo was a trade mark of colonial architecture, used exclusively on the surfaces of cupolas and church towers.
In the era of ornate churches and majestic cathedrals, the design of public buildings and private homes lagged. The early colonial years produced just a sprinkling of notable lay architecture; one exception was the palace of Cortés, in Mexico City, which lacked a patio or inner courtyard, a hallmark of colonial blueprints. Yet the Spaniards, like the Romans, were builders and, as time went on, they left ample evidence of their genius in the homes of the colonial elite, often sumptuous, multistoried stone mansions, with thick walls, built around a patio, a design inherited from the Moors. Many stood in Mexico City, but some also in Guadalajara, Guanajuato, Oaxaca, Querétaro, Zacatecas, and San Luis Potosí. Exemplary public buildings of the Baroque age included the palace of the viceroys, built on the site of Moctezuma’s, where the Palacio Nacional now stands. It occupied one entire side of the Plaza de Armas or Zócalo. In Mexico City, too, were the monumental Palacio del Ayuntamiento and the solemn edifice of the Real y Pontificia Univerrsidad.
Blueprints for what might be called a colonial “middle-class” home also date from the seventeenth century. This was the single house of the burgués (burgess) who, though he owned merely a small lot, enjoyed sufficient income to allow himself comforts. The house, of adobe or stone, was literally two, both fronting on one wall or, in some instances, a kitchen. A square of rectangular patio, cut in half by the wall, served both sides of the double house. Living quarters for servants, the kitchen and pantry, and the stables and store-houses formed one side of the house; the other, with a large entrance called a zaguán, was made up of the bedrooms and the sala, the quarters for the owner and his family. This house survived, more or less, until the 1920s, when the North American model began to displace it.
The poor, if lucky, had simple homes. In the cities, they inhabited viviendas, tenements, one or two stories tall. Built of adobe, the rows of apartments, comprising two rooms usually and a kitchen, faced a long, dark, and narrow patio or, if just a single row, a high wall. Each apartment had but one entrance, the doorway facing the patio or wall. Housing in the provincial cities was of identical mold, but not always. In the city of Zacatecas, struggling storekeepers and their like, a kind of “upper-class poor,” lived on the outskirts in adobe houses with a bedroom, sala, kitchen, and pantry. In the backyard, at times, they had a corral. The very poor, whether rural or urban, Indian or mestizo, inhabited tiny, one-room adobe huts or, in the tropics, round or square shelters of sticks under a thatched roof.
In the next issue we’ll continue with Chapter V of this fascinating book, THE BAROQUE YEARS.
Prof. Germán Estrada
E-mail: estradanav@yahoo.com
Source: From the book Triumphs and Tragedy, a History of the Mexican People by his author Ramon Eduardo Ruiz, and with his authorization. (W.W. Norton & Company. New York-London).
Prof. Germán Estrada is the author of the best selling book, México Mágico: Everything You Wanted To Know About... But Nobody Told You..." available in Puerto Vallarta at The Net House, Mail Boxes, Etc., Books, Books as well as directly from his website.
Archives by date |
Current
Weather Report
