In Latin America and the U.S., more than 170 buildings emulate Andalusi art
The fascination with the Alhambra and Andalusi art has inspired an extraordinary wave of imitation across the world, whose most astonishing replica is, without a doubt, the palace built by a Saudi emir on the outskirts of Riyadh, as revealed last week by El Correo del Golfo. But that is not the only example. In the 19th century, the impact of the Alhambra was so great that architecture throughout Latin America and the United States produced a surprising array of buildings in the Andalusi, or so-called Neo-Arab, style. Up to 170 examples have been catalogued by Professor of Art History Rodrigo Gutiérrez Viñuales, author of one of the most exhaustive studies on the subject, conducted with a team under his direction.
The highest concentration of replicas of the Nasrid palace—and of Andalusi art in general—is found in the Caribbean region, mainly in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and northern Colombia. The reason lies in the fact that many Caribbean architects trained at universities in the United States. It was precisely through North America that, in the 19th century, the Anglo-Saxon fashion of emulating the Islamic art of the Iberian Peninsula spread, during a period of growing fascination with all things exotic.
American architectural magazines were filled with Neo-Arab style buildings, and their influence spread not only throughout the Caribbean but across the entire South American continent—from Peru to Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, and Brazil. Many architects joined this romantic trend. For example, Mexican architect Eduardo Tamariz built numerous Neo-Moorish constructions in Puebla. Or Adolfo Morales de los Ríos, born in Seville but established in Rio de Janeiro at the end of the 19th century, where he left behind an abundant legacy of Andalusi-style buildings.
The entire phenomenon of admiration for the Nasrid palace became known in Spain as “Alhambrism,” and its spread across South America was enormous. There, the more common terms were Moorish, Neo-Moorish, or Neo-Arab. “The concept goes beyond the Alhambra,” explains Gutiérrez Viñuales. In general, Alhambra came to refer to any building incorporating Islamic features. Under that label were also included partial copies of the Mosque of Córdoba and Seville’s Giralda, the other two indisputable symbols of Islamic art developed in the Iberian Peninsula between the 8th and 15th centuries. The term, moreover, did not refer exclusively to art from Al-Andalus but to any work with Oriental or Islamic characteristics.
Argentine-born professor Rodrigo Gutiérrez Viñuales has been studying the subject for years at the University of Granada in Spain. In his view, the trend reflects the “taste for the exotic” that pervaded the entire 19th century. The origin of many of these works can be traced to World’s Fairs, which became “laboratories of ephemeral architecture.” Gradually, the style was adopted in urban centers as permanent constructions.
“There is a lot of residential architecture, and in some cases institutional,” notes the expert, author of half a dozen articles on the topic, as well as a monographic book published in 2017 titled Alhambras. Arquitectura neoárabe en Latinoamérica, co-written with Rafael López Guzmán. The Alhambrist legacy is rich and diverse—typically visible in façades but also in interior spaces. It was common for neoclassical buildings to reserve a Neo-Arab room, usually a masculine space for smoking or billiards. Restaurants and cinemas named Alhambra were also widespread, even when they featured only a single Nasrid capital. “It became a brand. The same happened with the Aztec style, which included Inca and Mayan art,” says Gutiérrez Viñuales.
One of the most unusual examples of the so-called “Moorish style” was the replica of the Giralda tower in New York. In the early 20th century, the Sevillian-style tower was among the tallest in the city until it was finally demolished in the 1920s. Although few remember it today, numerous photographic records of its existence remain online. The New York Giralda was not the only one of its kind in the Americas; Art History professor Francisco Javier Recio identified around twenty Almohad-inspired towers, mostly in the United States.
The cities richest in Neo-Arab art, according to Gutiérrez Viñuales, are Havana, San Juan (Puerto Rico), Puebla, and Rio de Janeiro. Among the most emblematic buildings are the Oswaldo Cruz Institute, the Hotel Sevilla, and the Acuña Family Mausoleum. “It’s very hard to define which are the most significant. There are some excellent examples, such as the Palacio de Acisclo del Valle in Cienfuegos,” the professor asserts.
The Fountain of the Lions, the most universal symbol of the Alhambra of Granada, has also been widely replicated across Latin America. The first was built in 1862 at the Sociedad de Bellas Artes in Santiago de Chile. Other examples can be found in Camagüey and San Juan, Puerto Rico. In the latter, at the Casa de España, a copy was made with two tiers instead of the single one found in Granada’s original. Many of these fountains were crafted in Granada, Seville, or Córdoba and later shipped to Latin America. “Architects would often come to Spain to purchase the elements,” explains Gutiérrez Viñuales. At other times, the pieces were sent separately and reassembled in South America.
Professor Viñuales became interested in Alhambrism shortly after settling in Granada thirty years ago. During his many trips through Latin America, he documented each building and photographed them. The internet also proved helpful in locating many of them, allowing him to compile a remarkable catalogue of Andalusi-inspired architecture across the Americas. His is undoubtedly the most thoroughly documented study of a fascination with Andalusi art that has now lasted for nearly two centuries.
