[edit]
Bell tower of the Badajoz Cathedral. 16th century
The city is studded with Moorish and medieval architecture, although its remnants of Roman and Visigothic architecture are not as prominent as in nearby Mérida. The Alcazaba fortress is the most notable structure in the city which attests to the Moorish culture in Badajoz. It was the only important fort on the southern Portuguese frontier during the 17th and 18th centuries and controlled the routes of southern Portugal and Andalusia and was a staging point for invasions against Portugal. It was occupied by the dukes of La Roca during the Christian period. It presently serves as the Archeological Museum of Badajoz. Many of Badajoz's historical monuments which were in ruins have been refurbished. Its restaurants, pubs and nightlife are a major attraction for the Portuguese across the border. The 13th-century Badajoz Cathedral (converted from a mosque in 1238) is in the old city and its architecture is indicative of the tempestuous history of Badajoz, resembling a fortress, with its massive walls. Three of the cathedral's windows are unique – one is in Gothic style, the second is Renaissance style and the third is in Platersque style.
Municipal buildings[edit]
Ayuntamiento (Town Hall)
Palacio de Congresos de Badajoz, the congressional palace, is the work of the architects José Selgas and Lucia Cano. Palacio Municipal houses the City Hall. The remains of the original City Hall building are in ruins. The current building dates to 1852, and the clock was added in 1889. In 1937, the municipal architect, Rodolfo Martinez, renovated the building, with particular emphasis on stylistic uniformity, expanding its towers and changing its decorative elements. It features a balustrade, a central balcony and columns.
Badajoz has several municipal libraries serving the city and wider province, including the Biblioteca Pública Municipal A. Dominguez, Biblioteca Pública Municipal Bda. de Llera, Biblioteca Pública Municipal Cerro de Reyes, Biblioteca Pública Municipal Pardaleras, and the Biblioteca Pública Municipal San Roque.
Historical sites[edit]
Alcazaba de Badajoz
Alcazaba[edit]
Main article: Alcazaba of Badajoz
The Alcazaba, a Moorish citadel built in the 9th century by Ibn Marwan, was fortified by the Almohad caliph Abu Yaqub Yusuf in 1169, although there are traces of earlier work dating back to 913 and 1030. The Alcazaba served as the primary residences for the rulers of the Taifa of Badajoz in the 11th and 12th centuries. The Almohad rulers were expelled in the 13th century at the hands of Alfonso IX of León. The Torre de Espantaperros has a height of 30 metres (98 ft) and is built of mud and mortar. It has an octagonal plan with a quadrangular structure that once provided scenic views of the countryside. The name is attributed to the sharp ringing of a bell that was one installed in the tower. The building attached to it, built in the 16th century called La Galera, once served as city hall, then a prison. A well-tended garden surrounded this monument where archeological finds from the Visigothic, Roman, and other periods were found.
Vauban fort[edit]
The Vauban military fort was built in the 17th century during the war between Spain and Portugal that lasted from 1640 to 1668 as a defense measure to counter-attack forces entering the city from the northwest and southeast. It is made of stone, brick and lime concrete. It has eight bastions built on the northern part of the fort as the Guadiana and Rivilla rivers on the south provided the defense. The bastions are named as the San Pedro, La Trinidad, the Santa María, the San Roque, the San Juan, the Santiago, the San José and the San Vicente.
La Giralda[edit]
La Giralda
La Giralda, located near Plaza de la Soledad, is a replica of the Giralda in Sevilla. The structure was completed in 1930 by a local businessman for commercial intent. Built in the neo-Arab Andalusian regionalist style, it is decorated with ceramic tiles and metal work and has the symbol of Mercury embossed on it as symbol of commerce. In 1978, Telefónica acquired the building and refurbished it, established operating offices. In 1998, Telefónica vacated the structure, and four years later, offered the structure to potential buyers for €4.2 million. No buyer was uncovered, and Telefónica announced plans to reestablish local offices in the Giralda but later abandoned it. Various proposals for the local government to acquire the building have been made, including plans for appropriating an expansion of the Museum of Fine Arts, a regional cultural centre, and an Easter-centric museum, Easter being a major touristic draw for the city.
Puerta de Palmas[edit]
Puerta Palmas
The Puerta de Palmas was built in 1551. It has two cylindrical towers flanking the entrance door. Prince Philip II and Emperor Charles V and date of construction are mentioned on the outer side of the tower. The towers are fortified with battlements and they have two decorative cords at the top and bottom levels. Its entrance is east-facing, and is double-arched and is decorated with medallions of the shield of the Emperor Charles V. It was once used as a prison, but has since undergone many renovations and has been an entrance point to the city.
Real Monasterio de Santa Ana[edit]
Monastery of Saint Anne
It is a Christian monastery in Badajoz, declared a Bien de Interés Cultural site in 1988. It is the headquarters of the Order of St. Clare in the city and lies in the heart of the old city. It was founded in 1518 by Ms. Leonor de Vega i Figueroa, under the blessing of Pope Leo X, and belonged to the jurisdiction of the Franciscan province of San Miguel. According to the tombstone in the grounds, Figueroa was abbess of the monastery for forty years until her death on April 17, 1558. She was buried in the grounds, until moved to the Cripta Real del Monasterio de El Escorial. The monastery underwent a major transformation in the 18th century although the original structure partly remains. Outwardly, part of the building has buttresses and a tower with two bells. On the vault of the chancel stands a lookout tower with a lattice brick convent, topped with pinnacles. The church of the monastery has a single nave which was rebuilt in the late 17th century, and the presbytery is covered by a late Gothic rib vault dated to the first half of the 16th century.
The church contains numerous altarpieces, imagery, paintings, and silverware.
Gardens[edit]
La Galera
The Jardines de la Galera date back to the 10th century from the aftasids. They are nestled between the Torre de Espantaperros and the Chemin de ronde, within the Alcazaba. Many Alhambran ruins still exist within the gardens, and have been open to the public since 2007 after the site was restored after being closed for more than thirty years. The etymology of the gardens stems from the fact that the gardens provided a respite for prisoners sentenced to the gallows in Seville. Plant species extant in the gardens include cinnamomum camphora, dichondra repens, ceiba speciosa, and trees of the myrtle, laurel, orange, lemon, and pomegranate. Other parks and gardens include Castelar, which has a central pond and several monuments dedicated to the romanticist writer Carolina Coronado and to Luis Chamizo Trigueros, la Legión, Rivillas y Calamón, San Fernando, and La Viña. The city also has a water and leisure park, called the Lusiberia.
Museums[edit]
The Museo Extremeño e Iberoamericano de Arte Contemporáneo (MEIAC) has collections of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American artists. The building is located on the site of the old Pretrial Detention and Correctional centre, which had been built in the mid-1950s on the grounds of a former 17th-century military stronghold, known as the Fort of Pardaleras. The Museo Provincial de Bellas Artes (Provincial Museum of Fine Arts), the premier gallery of Extremadura, is set in two palatial 19th-century homes next to the Plaza de la Soledad. It is 2,000 square metres (22,000 sq ft) in size, with more than 1,200 paintings and sculptures from the 16th to the 20th century representing over 350 artists such as Zurbarán, Luis de Morales, Caravaggio,
Flemish painters, Francisco de Goya, Felipe Checa, Torre Isunza, Eugenio Hermoso, Adelard Covarsí, Antonio Juez Nieto, Francisco Pedraja Muñoz, Pablo Picasso, and Salvador Dalí, among others.
The Museo Arqueológico Provincial
The Museo de la Ciudad "Luis de Morales" ("Luis de Morales" City Museum) was built in what may have been the home of the Renaissance painter Luis de Morales and contains many his paintings. The Museo Arqueológico Provincial (Provincial Archaeological Museum) is located within the fortress, containing pieces from all parts of the Province of Badajoz. The building houses the 16th-century palace of the dukes of Feria. The collection is organized into six major areas: prehistory, early history, Roman, Visigoth, Medieval Islam and Christian. The elegant building is built of stone and brick masonry, and has four towers at the corners with a terraced facade. The interior is made up of Mudejar brick arches resting on octagonal columns.
The Museo Catedralicio (Cathedral Museum) is situated on the cathedral grounds. It provides a historical journey through the different stages of the building's construction. It also features artifacts from the founding of the archdiocese to the present day. The collections include Filipino ivories, carvings and Flemish tapestries, the tombstone of Alfonso Suárez de Figueroa, and the Custodia Procesional del Corpus of 1558. There are also works by Luis de Morales and Zurbarán. The Museo Taurino (Bullfighting Museum) is located in the city centre, organized by the Extremadurian Bullfighting Club. It includes posters, photographs and objects from the world of bullfighting. The Museo del Carnaval (Carnival Museum) opened in 2007 in the Menacho centre. Costumes of groups who participated over the years in the city's carnival are exhibited in the museum. In 2008, it joined the Extremadura network of museums.
Plazas[edit]
Plaza Alta
Plaza de España
Plaza de España is in the centre of the city, the layout was designed by the city architect Rodolfo Martinez in 1917 and completed in 1920. The large cathedral centers the historical area. Plaza de Cervantes is considered place of importance for the history of Badajoz. Parts of the square occupy an area which belonged to St. Andrew's Church and its cemetery. It is decorated in white marble with a concentric mosaic of pointed stars dating to 1888. Plaza Alta, recently restored, was for centuries the center of the city since it exceeded the limits of the Muslim citadel; it was formerly known simply as "the square". Spanish flamenco guitarist Paco de Lucía performed on the Plaza Alta on 10 July 2013. La Giralda is located near Plaza de la Soledad.
Residential buildings[edit]
Casa Álvarez-Buiza, a private house and commercial complex, was built in the San Juan district by Adel Franco Pinna between 1918 and 1912. The building located on the Plaza de La Soledad once housed the offices of the Bank of Spain. Artistic elements include the use of lime, brick and colorful ceramics with an Andalusian influence. Casa del Cordón is a private house, built in the late Gothic style of the early 16th century, and has mullioned windows. It currently houses the Archdiocese. Casa Puebla, built in 1921, is one of the other designs of Pinna, who designed numerous buildings around Badajoz. It is one of the best examples of regional architecture in Andalusian style and the property has two facades, the main one featuring neo-Renaissance elements.
Cemeteries[edit]
During the Visigoths period the burials, as noted from the archeological finds, were near the Picuriña, Pardaleras, and Cerro de Reyes sites. During the Arab period, burials were along the roads and near the eastern suburb of the Citadel, close to Cerro de la Muela and also in the area of Santiago bastion; these locations were noted during recent excavations. Badajocenses Christians from the earliest centuries towards the end of 19th century buried their dead in or near churches.
Badajoz's oldest two cemeteries are Cementerio de San Juan and Cementerio de Nuestra Señora de la Soledad. The cemeteries in active use are the Cementerio de San Juan, Cementerio Virgen de las Nieves de Balboa, Cementerio de la Inmaculada Concepción de Gévora, Cementerio San Isidro de Novelda, Cementerio Inmaculado Corazón de María de Valdebótoa and Cementerio Santiago Apóstol de Villafranco.
The Cementerio de San Juan is the oldest of cemeteries still in service and is dated to earlier than1839.
Bridges[edit]
View of the Guadiana, Puente Real bridge and the Caja Badajoz building
The city of Badajoz is home to five bridges, four of which span the Guadiana.
Puente de Palmas
The Puente de Palmas, also known as Puente Viejo, is the oldest bridge in Badajoz; the masonry was first laid in 1460, but a sudden rise in the river's waters destroyed the structure in 1545. It was rebuilt under D. Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, Governor of Badajoz, during the reign of Philip II of Spain. In 1603, 16 of its 24 spans were destroyed by floods and were restored between 1609 and 1612. The bridge was once again rebuilt in 1833; José María Otero was the engineer and Valentin Falcato, the architect. Further improvements were made during the early 21st century, when the number of spans was increased to 32 and towers were added at both ends giving a total length of 600 metres (2,000 ft). The bridge reflects the city's history with all the changes made to its spans, arches, pillars and buttresses over the centuries.
Puente de la Universidad, or Puente Nuevo, is downstream of the old Palmas Bridge. It was built in 1960. Puente de la Autonomía Extremeña was completed in 1990 and is located upstream of Puente de Palmas, connecting to the major roads which lead to Madrid and to Highway N-435 Badajoz-Fregenal de la Sierra. Puente Real is a suspension bridge across the Guadiana, the fourth bridge in the city which was completed in 1994 The foundation stone was laid by the King of Spain in 1992. It has six spans of viaducts of 32 metres (105 ft) each in a total bridge length of 452 metres (1,483 ft). It has a bicycle lane and links to the Elvas Avenue leading to Portugal and many other city centres.
