murciaassembly

Discovering Cartagena

More Articles By Phillip Bruce www.raxomnium.com

Murcia Assembly’s Wild Building

One of the oddities of architecture is that overblown politicians always seem to award themselves mad monuments to fleeting populist styles.

These usually come with a price tag that runs massively over-budget, as designs fail and costs inflate beyond all reason. The hilarious saga of the Scottish Parliament building, which looks as if it is going to fall down at any minute and has no relationship whatsoever to Scotland’s heritage is a good example of this. The hideous “egg” building that is to disfigure central Peking as a home for its opera house, designed by a Frenchman, is another example of pompous pride. Still, if should fit in well as the bulldozers are now busily razing the last of old Peking in preparation for forthcoming Olympic games. Who can behold the modern buildings of Paris without feeling sick?

The headquarters of the Regional Assembly of Murcia is actually situated in Cartagena, which pleases everyone who lives there and annoys everyone else.

The parliament building can be found on Paseo de Alfonso XIII and very odd it looks. The name “Gaudi” comes up when foreigners gaze at this building as claimed influences of the Catalan architect are seen in the flowing lines and colourful tiles.

The official tourist map says: “The façade has architectural influences of the Renaissance while maintaining a modernist air, typical of this type of architecture in the Levant.” Which is one way of looking at it. Another source refers to the use of “…the traditional technique of trencadis, colourful mosaics of broken tiles.”

There are certainly plenty of broken tiles on the façade. The question arises: Are these tiles smashed up specially or are they waste from tile factories?

The building features quasi-classical columns at the base, with iron starred interchanges to the upper levels. There are more columns on the upper levels, figures, patterns and colour streams. On the walls at ground level to the sides of the entrance the names of the cities and towns of Murcia are inscribed.

The interior of the building is interesting, featuring a traditional courtyard but it is not usually possible to see this as the building is not open to the public.

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