Spain – Mudejar Architecture of Aragon

If Teruel’s thirteenth- and fourteenth-century inhabitants witnessed the rise of Mudéjar style (added to Unesco’s World Heritage List in 1986), those at the dawn of the twentieth century saw how buildings created using a brand-new architectural language found their place in the city. These two events, while distant in time, both conceal a specific social argument.

As in other cities, Modernisme in Teruel can be linked to the local bourgeoisie, who aimed to compete with buildings erected by the aristocracy in bygone centuries as a power symbol. To bring such desires to life, they championed Pau Monguió i Segura, from Tarragona, who they saw as the ideal architect to create their buildings. The third party in the process were the artisans of Teruel, who contributed with great professionalism to these works. This was a happy complicity which infused a singular, striking energy into Teruel’s Modernista architecture.

While the city did not experience sufficient demographic increase to allow the addition of an Eixample or extension as in Barcelona’s case, yet a building renewal did occur in the Old Town.

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