Modernism Murcia Art Route
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Was Modernism that really made an impact in the present appearance
of cartagena and the nearby town of La Unión. It was an artistic
movement from late XIX century and early XX century full of desing,
delicacy, and a close involvement with natural elements.
The exceptionally buoyant situation of the minning industry and the
increase in the prices of metal made the area live as though it where
in a dream for a time.
La Union was even called the New California, given the astonishing
pace at which casinos, palaces, and brothels sprang up everywhere. It
is in this context that constructions like the Casa Piñón
and the Public market appeared in the mining town od La Unión.
The public market is a superb representation in ironwork of early XX
century architecture. Othewealthy families decided to erect their own
manor houses in Cartagena. This is how some jewels of Modernism in the
Region began to spring up. One of them is the City Hall, erected in
1902 by Tomás Rico. Whereas the façade shows an alternation
of neo-classic columns and eclectic elements, the interior layout was
conceived around a magnificent marble staircase with numerous large
windows and ornaments that remind us of flowers, leaves, and other natural
elements, very much in the taste of Modernism.
In the calle Mayor are the casa Cervantes and the Casa Llagostera,
both by Victor Beltri, a famous local architect that made a decisive
contribution to modernism in the region.
The casa Cervantes, one of the earliest examples of its kind in Cartagena,
shows modernist bay windows and ironwork, as well as an allegorical
relief about mining and maritime Cartagena and of Mars and Minerva.
The second house shows a fully tilled façade also with mythological
references.
However perhaps the best symbol of Modernism in the city is the Gran
Hotel in San Sebastian square, by Tomás Rico and then Victor
Beltri, who finished the project after the death of the former in 1907.
Its particularly remarkable height is accompanied by an overloaded exterior
ornamentation, again with a wealth of garlands and motifs copied from
nature.
Of all public buildings of that time, we have to give the railway station
a mention, with its large doorway, dominated by a triple arcade, topped
by a glass roof and a large window with ceramic decorative elements.
Other important modernist mansions are the casa Maestre, of marked
Gaudí influences, the Dorda, in calle del Carmen, with its massive
façade and neonazarite and oriental interior decoration.
Hotel Zapata, in España square at present a Carmelite school.
The Peñarroya building, on the Alfonso XII promenade, the nearby
casa de los Catalanes, and also the palace of Aguirre again by Beltri
with its façade forming a corner and decorated with ceramic and
floral ornaments.
In the city of Murcia there are also some memorable monuments, although
the impact of Modernismhere was far from the splendour of Cartagena.
Of all examples, the three most outstanding ones are the edificio Guillamón
in the passageway named after it; the edificio Cerdá in Santo
Domingo square, topped with its characteristic temple dome, and the
casa Diaz Cassou in Santa Teresa street.
We should now include in this our list of monuments in the Region the
examples of the norias de riego one of the most essential features of
life in the fertile wetlands of Murcia albeit difficult to date in history.
Ever since Islamic times these large working tools have been updated
and improved so as to deliver water through the irrigation channels
to distant crops. The best preserved water wheels are the ones in Alcantarilla
beside the old by pass to Lorca, and on the outskirts of the village
of La Ñora.
Traditional windmills are a typical characteristic of the countryside
in the Campo de cartagena. For decades they filled the plains with white
sails and gigantic arms.
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