Speak the Culture: Spain: Be Fluent in Spanish Life and Culture

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1. Identity: the
   building blocks of
   2. Literature
   and philosophy
   3. Art and
   architecture
   4. Performing
   arts
   5. Cinema
   and fashion
   6. Media and
   communications
   7. Food and drink 8. Living culture:
   the details of

Tomb with a view: Spain’s earliest surviving buildings

Spain’s surviving prehistoric architecture is, as you might

expect, a stout affair. Chunky stone-built structures with

all the decorative charm of bunkers are found in various

weather-beaten corners of the peninsula. In fairness to

the designers, much that survives was actually built for

the dead in the shape of Neolithic dolmens, the basic

stone slab burial chambers that crop up across much of

Europe.They endure in Galicia and Asturias, although the

best-preserved versions are a pair of 2,500-year-old

giants in Antequera, Andalusia.The largest stone of the

bigger tomb, the Dólmen de Menga, weighs about 180

tonnes. On Minorca, Bronze Age settlers left behind bits

of house, trapezoid tombs, giantT-shapedtaulasand

mounds of stone that continue to baffle archaeologists.

Later, in Galicia and Asturias, the Celtiberians built

castros,hilltopclustersofround,stonedwellings.

The remnant thigh-high walls of Castro de SantaTegra,

at A Guarda, Galicia, give a good idea of how the villages

were shaped. However, even while the Iron Age

Celtiberians were huddling together in granite villages,

their architectural achievements were being shamed

somewhat by the peninsula’s newest arrivals, the

Romans.

Classical encounters: Roman builders in Spain

Greek and Carthaginian visitors left little architectural

excitement on the peninsula, so the grandiose concrete,

stone and marble marvels of Roman building no doubt

held natives agog during four centuries of Pax Romana.

What survives today is typically Roman, uncomplicated

by anything definitively Spanish, and the sprinkling

of aqueducts, theatres and forums mimic those once

found across the empire. Roman villas have been

excavated far and wide, from Estepona in Andalusia to

Elderly residents
Spain boasts more
unspoilt architecture of
yore than almost any
other country in Europe.
Little of it can be classed
as truly original; indeed,
Spain has traditionally
latched onto whatever
structural style is doing
the rounds. However,
regardless of period,
school or movement, the
Iberians have always
given the latest trends a
peculiarly native twist.
Small windows,
protective against fierce
heat, are recurrent, as
is a periodic weakness
for gushing facades.
Abstention from both
world wars in the 20th
century no doubt goes
someway to explaining
the wealth of aged
architecture, as, perhaps,
does the relatively
languid pace of Spain’s
modern development.

Alcántara, the
Extremaduran town with
a majestic Roman bridge,
takes its name from the
Arabic phrase for – you
guessed it – ‘the bridge’.

3.2.1 Built to last: prehistoric and classical structures