New Melilla

New Melilla

Melilla La Nueva
New Melilla Melilla La Nueva
Ensanche
Country	Spain
Autonomous City	Melilla
Modernist expansion	1901

New Melilla or Ensanche de Melilla is the widening of the Spanish city of Melilla that emerged in the 19th century, but especially during the 20th century.^[1]^[2]

History

From the end of the 19th century, a period of splendour began in Melilla, which created a modern city, and after Barcelona, the Spanish city with the greatest representation of modernist art, as well as the greatest representation of modernism in Africa.^[3]^[4]

There are more than a thousand listed buildings that form part of the Historic-Artistic Complex of the City of Melilla, a Bien de Interés Cultural, and are spread throughout the central expansion and its neighbourhoods. Many of them are projects by an architect from the Barcelona School based in Melilla, Enrique Nieto, who produced a very extensive modernist work, as a follower of the architect Lluis Domènech i Montaner. His floral modernist buildings stand out. Other modernist authors in Melilla were Emilio Alzugaray Goicoechea and Tomás Moreno Lázaro. In the 1930s, Art Deco took hold in Melilla's architecture, and architects such as Francisco Hernanz Martínez or Lorenzo Ros Costa created spectacular buildings in the city's neighbourhoods.^[5]^[6]^[7]^[8]

Exterior forts

Fuerte de Camellos
Fortín de Reina Regente
Fuerte de Cabrerizas Altas
Fuerte de Rostrogordo

They are a set of fortifications, forts not connected to each other and at a considerable distance from each other, built in the second half of the 19th century in a neo-medieval style that is rather more graceful than threatening, overflowing with a beauty that in some cases, when painted in bright colours, such as orange, makes one forget their defensive function, they seem more like elements of games and fun than defensive structures.

They are built with local stone for the walls and bricks for the arches and vaults, with obsolete fortification techniques, incapable of facing modern artillery, since the Riffian Kabyles, the enemy from which they had to defend Melilla, did not have artillery.

Historicisms

Almost all public buildings, places of worship.

Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Military Chapel
Former College of Good Counsel
Gaselec Building
Central Mosque
Bombillo Fountain
House of Crystals

Eclecticisms

Metropol Building
Grupo de Escuelas Mixtas Alfonso XIII
Melilla Port Authority Building
Estación sanitaria del Puerto de Melilla (Former health station of the Port of Melilla)
Carmen Balaca's House
Headquarters of the Civil Society La Constructora
Polígono Market
Polígono Market

The eclectic is another based on mixing elements, alternating them and increasing the ornamentation, with greater richness of wrought iron and the appearance of flying cornices, highlighting Droctoveo Castañón, house of Carmen Balaca and headquarters of the North African Company and José de la Gándara, the Mixed Schools Group, current headquarters of the Department of Economy and Finance of the Autonomous City of Melilla, the Metropol building, the Melilla Port Authority building and the Polígono market.

Modernism

Enrique Nieto He is the introducer of modernism in Melilla. Although what best defines Melilla architecture is modernism, a true continuation of the Rococo, with a very rich ornamentation, of infinite and suggestive forms and varied colours.^[9]

Former editorial office of El Telegrama del Rif
Official Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Navigation
Furniture La Reconquista
Former Military Commissary
Former Reconquista Department Store
David J. Melul House
House of Jose Zea and Manuel Alvadalejo
House of Jose Garcia Alvaro
House of Juan Montes Hoyo

Emilio Alzugaray

College of the Brothers of the Christian Schools
House of Solomon Cohen
Casa de las Fieras (Melilla) (House of Beasts)
House of Jose Morely
Samuel Salama's Widow's House

Art Deco

Monumental Cinema Sport

His masterpiece is the Monumental Cinema Sport (1930–1932).

Enrique Nieto

Palace of the Assembly
Red Building
Enrique Nieto's House
Carcaño's House
Rafael Rico Albert's House
Real Market

Francisco Hernanz

On the other hand, Francisco Hernanz who created zigzag works such as the House of Jacinto García Marfil, (1932), developed the aerodynamic art deco, with sober lines and almost no decoration, such as the House of Luis Raya (1935), the House of Abraham Benatar, the House of Bertila Seoane and the House of Parres.^[10]

Rationalism

Bank of Spain building
Post Office Building in Melilla
Amram J. Wahnon House
Cervantes Street, 4

Industrial architecture

Mineral Bridge
CEMR Viaduct
CEMR mineral warehouses
CEMR mineral loading dock
CEMR mineral loading dock

Modern architecture

V Centenario Towers
Chacel Building

Municipal Cemetery of the Immaculate Conception

Margallo Pantheon
Pantheon of Heroes
Pantheon of Heroes
Regular Pantheon number 5

It is the main cemetery of the Spanish city of Melilla. It is located in the Plaza del Cementerio, at the end of the Cañada del Agua. Its construction began in 1890, under the project of the commander of engineers Eligio Suza and contracted by Manuel Fernández, and was inaugurated on January 1, 1892, and blessed by the vicar Juan Verdejo.

Sculptural elements

Monument to the Heroes of Taxdirt
Monument to the Heroes and Martyrs of the Campaigns
Monument to the Heroes of Spain
Monument to Pedro de Estopiñán and Virués
Statue of Legion Commander Francisco Franco Bahamonde
Encuentros
Tribute to Fernando Arrabal
Tribute to Melilla Modernism

Squares

Plaza de España.
Plaza Menéndez Pelayo

Parks

Hernandez Park

It is the most important park in Melilla, it was built in 1902 in the shape of a trapezoid according to the design of the engineer Vicente García del Campo, and is located in the Plaza de España

Lobera Park

It is named after its founder Cándido Lobera Girela, who, as president of the Board of Arbitration, created this park to prevent the construction of barracks on his land.