Buenavista Palace (Málaga)
Encyclopedia
Buenavista Palace is a historical edifice in Málaga
Málaga
Málaga is a city and a municipality in the Autonomous Community of Andalusia, Spain. With a population of 568,507 in 2010, it is the second most populous city of Andalusia and the sixth largest in Spain. This is the southernmost large city in Europe...

, Andalusia
Andalusia
Andalusia is the most populous and the second largest in area of the autonomous communities of Spain. The Andalusian autonomous community is officially recognised as a nationality of Spain. The territory is divided into eight provinces: Huelva, Seville, Cádiz, Córdoba, Málaga, Jaén, Granada and...

, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

. It was built in the first half of the 16th centuryJavier Arroyo, El museo del pintor en Málaga abrirá a finales de 2002 con 186 piezas, El País 2000-06-09, accessed online 2010-01-16, says 1530.
Palacio de Buenavista, en Málaga, Diario Sur, 2007-08-02, accessed online 2010-01-17, says the first quarter of the 16th century.

About the Museo Picasso in Málaga, europeforvisitors.com, accessed online 2010-01-17, says "built between 1516 and 1542 by Jewish converts". Those same dates are given by Javier Caballero, La 'nueva casa' del maestro, El Mundo, 2003-10-04, reproduced on the site of the Online Picasso Project, accessed online 2010-01-18. for Diego de Cazalla on the ruins of a Nasrid palace. Declared a "Property of Cultural Interest"
Bien de Interés Cultural
A Bien de Interés Cultural is a category of the Spanish heritage register. This category dates from 1985 when it replaced the former heritage category of Monumento nacional in order to extend protection to a wider range of cultural property...

 in 1939, it was leased to the Spanish government in 1946 for a provincial art museum, which opened in 1961. In 1997 it was acquired to house the present Museo Picasso Málaga
Museo Picasso Málaga
The Museo Picasso Málaga is a museum in Málaga, Andalusia, Spain, the city where artist Pablo Ruiz Picasso was born. One of the world's many Picasso museums, it opened in 2003 in the Buenavista Palace, and has 155 works donated by members of Picasso's family...

, which opened there in 2003. It is located in the historic center of Málaga, in the Calle San Agustín in the former Jewish quarter
Jewish quarter (diaspora)
In the Jewish Diaspora, a Jewish quarter is the area of a city traditionally inhabited by Jews. Jewish quarters, like the Jewish ghettos in Europe, were often the outgrowths of segregated ghettos instituted by the surrounding Christian authorities. A Yiddish term for a Jewish quarter or...

 (judería), next to the San Agustín convent and not far from the Cathedral of Málaga
Cathedral of Malaga
Cathedral of Málaga is Renaissance church in Málaga, Andalusia, southern Spain. It is located inside the limits that the missing Arab wall marked, forming a great architectonic set with the nearby Alcazaba and the Castle of Gibralfaro. It was constructed between 1528 and 1782, following the plans...

.

Architecture

Except for its towers, the Buenavista Palace is a two-story building. Its Plateresque
Plateresque
Plateresque, meaning "in the manner of a silversmith" , was an artistic movement, especially architectural, traditionally held to be exclusive to Spain and its territories, which appeared between the late Gothic and early Renaissance in the late 15th century, and spread over the next two centuries...

 façade is built of thick stone blocks; the ornament around the doors and windows is elaborate, although the rest of the ashar facades are simple to the point of austerity. The doors and windows are very large, and are placed asymmetrically. The design of the main entrance is of a piece with the balcony over the door. The interior is arranged around two patio
Patio
A patio is an outdoor space generally used for dining or recreation that adjoins a residence and is typically paved. It may refer to a roofless inner courtyard of the sort found in Spanish-style dwellings or a paved area between a residence and a garden....

s
. The first patio is surrounded by a double colonnade
Colonnade
In classical architecture, a colonnade denotes a long sequence of columns joined by their entablature, often free-standing, or part of a building....

 (a separate colonnade for each story). The other, farther in, is in the Mudéjar style, with octagonal pillars, and two Roman
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

-era mosaics. One of these, from Cártama
Cártama
Cártama is a town and municipality in the province of Málaga, part of the autonomous community of Andalusia, southern Spain. The municipality is situated approximately 17 km from Málaga. It is one of the most extensive towns in the province, covering c. 105 km²...

, represents the birth of Venus
Venus (mythology)
Venus is a Roman goddess principally associated with love, beauty, sex,sexual seduction and fertility, who played a key role in many Roman religious festivals and myths...

. The other, from Benalmádena, is in a geometric pattern. The stairway at the right accesses the upper story, which originally had the same floor plan as the ground floor. The floor plans have been somewhat modified for the Museo Picasso Málaga.

The palace is the most important example of seigneurial
Nobility
Nobility is a social class which possesses more acknowledged privileges or eminence than members of most other classes in a society, membership therein typically being hereditary. The privileges associated with nobility may constitute substantial advantages over or relative to non-nobles, or may be...

 architecture executed after the 1487 conquest of Málaga
Granada War
The Granada War was a series of military campaigns between 1482 and 1492, during the reign of the Catholic Monarchs Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, against the Nasrid dynasty's Emirate of Granada...

 by the forces of the Catholic Monarchs
Catholic Monarchs
The Catholic Monarchs is the collective title used in history for Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon. They were both from the House of Trastámara and were second cousins, being both descended from John I of Castile; they were given a papal dispensation to deal with...

 Isabella
Isabella I of Castile
Isabella I was Queen of Castile and León. She and her husband Ferdinand II of Aragon brought stability to both kingdoms that became the basis for the unification of Spain. Later the two laid the foundations for the political unification of Spain under their grandson, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor...

 and Ferdinand
Ferdinand II of Aragon
Ferdinand the Catholic was King of Aragon , Sicily , Naples , Valencia, Sardinia, and Navarre, Count of Barcelona, jure uxoris King of Castile and then regent of that country also from 1508 to his death, in the name of...

 during the Granada War
Granada War
The Granada War was a series of military campaigns between 1482 and 1492, during the reign of the Catholic Monarchs Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, against the Nasrid dynasty's Emirate of Granada...

, the last war of the Reconquista
Reconquista
The Reconquista was a period of almost 800 years in the Middle Ages during which several Christian kingdoms succeeded in retaking the Muslim-controlled areas of the Iberian Peninsula broadly known as Al-Andalus...

; Diego de Cazalla had participated in that conquest. The architectural style is basically that of the Renaissance
Renaissance architecture
Renaissance architecture is the architecture of the period between the early 15th and early 17th centuries in different regions of Europe, demonstrating a conscious revival and development of certain elements of ancient Greek and Roman thought and material culture. Stylistically, Renaissance...

, with a Plateresque façade and Mudéjar
Mudéjar
Mudéjar is the name given to individual Moors or Muslims of Al-Andalus who remained in Iberia after the Christian Reconquista but were not converted to Christianity...

 aspects. Some of those Mudéjar
Mudéjar
Mudéjar is the name given to individual Moors or Muslims of Al-Andalus who remained in Iberia after the Christian Reconquista but were not converted to Christianity...

 aspects may be directly inherited from the previous Nasrid palace on the site: Professor Fernando Marías states that the torre morisca ("Moorish tower") adjacent to the Mudejar patio dates back to the old Nasrid palace. This combination is particularly emblematic of the period following the completion of the Reconquista. The chief Mudéjar element is the tower, which resembles those of certain houses in Granada
Granada
Granada is a city and the capital of the province of Granada, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. Granada is located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains, at the confluence of three rivers, the Beiro, the Darro and the Genil. It sits at an elevation of 738 metres above sea...

 in its style of cornice
Cornice
Cornice molding is generally any horizontal decorative molding that crowns any building or furniture element: the cornice over a door or window, for instance, or the cornice around the edge of a pedestal. A simple cornice may be formed just with a crown molding.The function of the projecting...

 and in the low alfiz
Alfiz
The alfiz is an architectonic adornment, consisting of a moulding, usually a rectangular panel, which encloses the outward side of an arch...

-style arches of its upper story, but is on a much grander scale than any found in that city.

The basement is effectively an archeological museum in its own right, visible from above through transparent panels in the floor.
During the construction of the museum, there were a series of interesting discoveries. There are remnants of a city wall and towers dating back to the Phoenicians, of a Roman
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

 factory to produce the fish-based sauce garum
Garum
Garum, similar to liquamen, was a type of fermented fish sauce condiment that was an essential flavour in Ancient Roman cooking, the supreme condiment....

, and also of an earlier Nasrid palace on the same site.

History

The palace was built in the first half of the 16th century. Some time after the death of Diego de Cazalla, it passed to the Counts of Mollina and in the 19th century to the Counts of Buenavista. Eventually, the palace passed to the Countess de Luna. It was used as a family home for centuries, but less so from some time in the 19th century. After that, the palace had various uses including as an educational center, a furniture factory, and in 1938 (during the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...

) a Red Cross hospital.

A royal decree in 1913 established the Museo de Bellas Artes (later Museo Provincial de Bellas Artes, "Provincial Museum of Fine Arts"), which opened in 1916 and was located beginning in 1920 in in a space that had formed part of the former Jesuit College of Saint Sebastian. The museum built up a strong collection, including works by Luis de Morales
Luis de Morales
Luis de Morales was a Spanish painter born in Badajoz, Extremadura. Known as "El Divino", most of his work was of religious subjects, including many representations of the Madonna and Child and the Passion....

 ("El Divino"), Luca Giordano
Luca Giordano
Luca Giordano was an Italian late Baroque painter and printmaker in etching. Fluent and decorative, he worked successfully in Naples and Rome, Florence and Venice, before spending a decade in Spain....

, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo
Bartolomé Estéban Murillo
Bartolomé Esteban Murillo was a Spanish Baroque painter. Although he is best known for his religious works, Murillo also produced a considerable number of paintings of contemporary women and children...

, Enrique Simonet
Enrique Simonet
Enrique Simonet Lombardo was a Spanish painter.Enrique Simonet was born in Valencia and first studied at the Saint Charles Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Valencia....

, Francisco Zurbarán
Francisco Zurbarán
Francisco de Zurbarán was a Spanish painter. He is known primarily for his religious paintings depicting monks, nuns, and martyrs, and for his still-lifes...

, and other comparably distinguished artists.

The Countess de Luna leased the palace to the Spanish State
Spanish State
Francoist Spain refers to a period of Spanish history between 1936 and 1975 when Spain was under the authoritarian dictatorship of Francisco Franco....

 in 1946 as a new home for the museum; in 1961 the Museo Provincial de Bellas Artes moved into the palace. The Museum of Fine Arts was closed in 1997 to make way for the Picasso museum which, after extensive modifications including the addition of some new adjacent buildings, opened in 2003. As of 2010, the Museo Provincial de Bellas Artes collection remains intact. Various temporary exhibitions have taken place at the Palacio de la Aduana
Palacio de la Aduana (Málaga)
The Palacio de la Aduana is a building in Málaga, Andalusia, Spain, originally a customs house for the Port of Málaga.The building was proposed by Manuel Martín Rodríguez in 1787 and approved by Charles III of Spain...

, but it does not yet have a new permanent home.

The palace was selected for the Picasso museum in accord with the wishes of the museum's principal donor, Christine Ruiz-Picasso, who wished the museum to be housed in a notable and typically Andalusian building. Besides the palace itself, the museum incorporates 18 houses from the old judería (Jewish quarter).

The museum was purchased in 1996 by the Andalusian Autonomous Government
Andalusian Autonomous Government
The Andalusian Autonomous Government is the regional government body of Andalusia, one of the 17 autonomous communities which make up Spain...

 for the sum of 650 million pesetas
Spanish peseta
The peseta was the currency of Spain between 1869 and 2002. Along with the French franc, it was also a de facto currency used in Andorra .- Etymology :...

. (roughly US$
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....

6.5 million). The conversion of the building for the Museo Picasso was a major undertaking. Led by the American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 architect Richard Gluckman, along with Isabel Cámara and Rafael Martín Delgado, it was budgeted at over 2,000 million pesetas
Spanish peseta
The peseta was the currency of Spain between 1869 and 2002. Along with the French franc, it was also a de facto currency used in Andorra .- Etymology :...

, about US$
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....

20 million.

In December 2009 the Fundación Museo Picasso Málaga ("Malaga Picasso Museum Foundation")—which operated the museum—and the Fundación Paul, Christine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso ("Paul, Christine and Bernard Ruiz-Picasso Foundation")—which owned the collection—merged to become the "Fundación Museo Picasso Málaga. Legado Paul, Christine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso" ("Museo Picasso Málaga Foundation. The Paul, Christine and Bernard Ruiz Picasso Legacy"). As a result, the Andalusian government agreed to give the new merged foundation ownership of the palace.

External links

Remedios García Rodríguez, Pasear por el centro de Málaga (2ª parte), Homines.com, portal of the Centro del Arte Contemporáneo de Málaga, gives a good architectural description of the building, with pictures. Canal Picasso, a very comprehensive series of articles about Picasso and the museum from Diario Sur Digital. These include a lot of images of the building, and articles about the building discuss what elements come from what period. Isabel Cámara Guezala and Rafael Martín Delgado, El Patriominio Histórico en la Escena Urbana: El Museo Picasso Málaga, part of Viva la Calle, Ayuntamiento de Málaga, Comisión Europea y Ministerio de Economía y Hacienda. Undated (2005 or 2006). Includes numerous photos of the palace and surroundings, as well as some architectural drawings and sketches.
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