Casa Chorizo Architectural Styles

If you have seen the wide variety of different fachadas of the casas chorizo, you see that each has their own style, ornaments and nowadays colors to reflect the owners' preferences. In the early days, when the houses were built, the style, quantity  and quality of ornaments showed the social status in the neighborhood, now just not more than a mere reflection of these houses' rich history.

As Casas Chorizo were built over a long period of time, dating from 1870 till 1930, they did intertwine with many different architectural fashion trends. The architectures range from Neoclassic, through Neo Renaissance, Art Nouveau and ending up with Art Deco styles. We show here the most important main styles of the house facades:

1. Neoclassical Architecture / Neoclasicismo: 

This type of architecture style started in the mid 1850's and lasted till early 20th century and is based on ancient Roman and Greek architectural styles inspired mostly by the works from the Roman architect Vitruvius. The architectural lines are straight and simple: windows and doors are rectangular shaped and facades count basic functional designs of cornices, drips ("goterones") and the small dust/water roofs ("guardapolvos") above windows without many other ornaments.

2. Neo Renaissance Architecture / Neorrenacimiento

This "neo" reborn style originated from the Italian palaces with emphasized use of ornaments in its cornices, arches and balustrades. The facade have the rectangle windows and doors and the decorations show flowing lines across its ornaments to reflect the style of the old antique Italian palaces. 

3. French Academic Architecture / Academicismo Francés

These facades reflect the 18th century style inspired by the French kings Louis the 15th and 16th, with opulently emphasized ornamental decorations, not just in the basic facade elements, but also with additional decorations to show its artistic value. The windows and doors are topped with slight curves and surrounded as well by decorations.

4. Art Nouveau Architecture

The Art Nouveau is the ornamental art style that flourished between about 1890 and 1910, The architecture is characterized by the use of a curved lines in its decorations and well top-rounded doors and windows. Furthermore, it facilitates different decorative reliefs on its wall.

5. Secession Architecture / Sezession

This architectural style was breaking away again from the Art Nouveau around 1900 and mixed the neo classical straight lines, horizontal as well as vertical lines intertwined with decorative leafs and natural motifs. The architects were focused on leveraging more geometric rectangular forms into the designs that you can see spread over the facade. Doors and windows are shaped based on classic rectangles, that contrasts the Art Nouveau rounded shapes.

6. Art Deco Architecture 

Art deco started from the 1920 as a popular architecture design trend and touched the last years of the era of casas chorizos. It represented modernism and with sleek anti classical design patterns to symbolize sophistication. The design is with geometrical shapes with straight lines and decorations with relief engraved in the facades.