The Historic Center of old Valladolid is one of the most relevant in Mexico, both for the historical significance of its buildings and for their architectural and cultural legacy. Find out a little more about its history here.
The Historic Center of Morelia It is one of the most relevant in Mexico, both because of the historical significance that has come from it to the country, and because of its monumentality. For this reason, legal protectionist measures have been taken for a long time, which despite the failures in their application, have contributed to the integral conservation of monuments in a high percentage.
Except for some mutilations and street openings, especially in the areas surrounding the old convents, which occurred in the last century due to the Reform Laws, the Historic Center has been conserved very complete urban planning. In reality, this area is the one occupied by the old Valladolid at the end of the 18th century, the layout of which was reflected in the beautiful plan drawn up by orders of the viceroy Don Miguel La Grua Talamanca y Branciforte, in 1794.
On the delimitation of this primitive urban area, which is properly the colonial one, protective regulations and decrees have been issued. For example, the regulation for the preservation of the typical and colonial appearance of the city of Morelia that was promulgated on August 18, 1956, the Presidential Decree, which federally declares the Historic Center of Morelia a zone of Historic Monuments, signed by the President of the Republic, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, on December 14, 1990 and published in the Official Gazette on the 19th of the same month. Finally, the official declaration of UNESCO, as to what is World Cultural Heritage, on December 12, 1991.
The above highlights the great cultural significance that the Historic Center of Morelia has. We cannot ignore that at the end of the viceroyalty, when then Valladolid was a small city of scarce 20,000 inhabitants, it had four large schools with their respective, spacious and beautiful buildings, namely: the Colegio Seminario Tridentino; the College of San Nicolás Hidalgo; which was Colegio de Los Jesuítas and Colegio de Las Rocas for girls. Likewise, it would not be an exaggeration to say that at the time of Independence it was, politically, the most restless and thinking city in New Spain. Here is the first light of the Generalissimo Dr. José Maria Morelos, whose surname transformed into a successful euphony inherits the city as a name from a decree of the local Congress in 1828. Tradition of social disagreements in force to date that, in a certain way, frequently it manifests itself in the heart of the Historic Center, to its honor and misfortune; honor is the permanent conscience of continuing to stand up to Iucha, but the misfortune is that, for several decades, especially student concerns or aspirations for social justice, have been expressed with the so-called "pints" or phrases written indiscriminately on the monuments or whatever building, which harms them and makes causes or reasons worthy of sympathy become annoying or reprehensible.
SOMETHING FROM HISTORY
Morelia was founded as an official town on May 18, 1541 by order of Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza, calling it Guayangareo, the name of Valladolid was given some time later, in the second half of the 16th century, as well as the title of city and a coat of arms. It is considered that its importance as a population began to develop from 1580, when the episcopal see of Michoacán and the civil authorities moved to it from Pátzcuaro, which did so in 1589.
MONUMENTAL DEVELOPMENT
During the seventeenth century its development began and increased; at the beginning, the two great convents of San Francisco and San Agustín were completed; in the middle, those of El Carmen and La Merced, as well as other churches such as La Compañía, San Juan and la Cruz, but, above all, in 1660 the construction of the current cathedral began, which constituted the religious architecture company of older proportions at the time started throughout the country. The location of the great temple defined the composition and distribution of spaces in the urban center, with a wise and unique use of the so-called "golden section", which divides the center of the city into two unequal but harmonious squares; the largest with portals, the smallest with walls, but without portals, in a conjunction and rhythms of great originality. However, the great construction boom and the greatest fruit, occurred in the 18th century; the smallest and most numerous monuments that today embellish and prestige the city, both religiously and civilly, date from it.
In the middle of this century, three great nunneries were founded and built: Las Rocas, Las Monjas and Capuchinas; another of friars, that of San Diego; five other churches, including the very large one dedicated to San José and half a dozen secondary chapels.
In 1744 the facades and grandiose towers of the cathedral were completed. It is also the century of maximum splendor of civil architecture, manifesting itself in the sumptuous buildings of education and government, such as the Seminary College (today the government palace), the Jesuit College (today the Clavijero Palace) and the San Nicolás College. , Las Casas Reales (today the municipal palace), La Alhóndiga (today the expansion of the Palace of Justice), plus dozens of palaces and stately mansions.
As such a monumental development required public services, the squares were adorned with fountains and between 1785 and 1789, with the impulse and generosity of Bishop Fray Antonio de San Miguel, the sturdy arcade of the 1700-meter-long and 250-meter aqueduct was built. and three stone arches.
Shortly before Independence, the city had about twenty thousand inhabitants.
During the century of the Reform Laws, little was built of a religious nature and rather innumerable works were destroyed, but on the other hand, at this time, the neoclassical residences were multiplying that were comfortably accommodated next to the old colonial palaces. as a reflection of restructuring and the social balance so desired at that time.
At the end of the century, buildings as important as the new Tridentino Seminary were built, next to the Church of San José, and the Teresiano School (today Federal Palace), both directed by Don Adolfo Tremontels, with a neoclassical style so ornate that it results from a broader aspect than the sober traditional baroque of the city. As this creative sequence accumulated, the city was enriched; Only in its historic center, Morelia has ten large squares, about five squares and as many corners with public fountains that, like open spaces, punctuate the fabric of streets and neighborhoods, which are around twenty churches and chapels of the time viceregal, among which are also located the many palaces and mansions.
Not destroying is already building, and preserving is a way of recreating; In this endeavor, Morelia seeks its own contribution, since one of the attitudes of conscience, characteristically modern, is that of respect for the inherited cultural heritage. Such is the responsibility implied by the Federal Decree for the Protection of the Historic Center of Morelia, where no less than 1,113 buildings are listed or included, an indicator number of the great monumental wealth that the city still has.
URBAN CHARACTER
The original line, made in the sixteenth century, has come down to us practically intact, making present expensive Renaissance yearnings such as order, wastefulness and far-sighted spaces that open into squares and extend into streets without fear of growth. For its time, the city was generously thought out; From the beginning it had wide streets and wide squares, with such spatial waste that its later development did nothing but give answers with vertical monumentality to the gallantry proposed and foreseen from its plane.
An order without monotony presides over the streets, a grid that, as it extends over the smooth irregularities of the hill, loses geometric rigor and adapts to them, not in an abstract but "organic" way, we would say today. This grid, which seems to be drawn "by hand," and not with a ruler, regulates the course of the streets that curve gently, making the vertical planes like a replica of the horizontal undulation that sustains them.
This harmony between plan and elevation, so wisely felt, is complemented in a monumental sense with an effort to underline the beauty of the great buildings, exalting their volumes or primordial elements such as facades, towers and domes. This was achieved by leading the perspectives of the streets towards them, an intention that is already in germ in the streets that lead to the facade of San Francisco and the side of San Agustín. Later, this solution was sharpened and made with a clear Baroque emphasis based on the great example given by the placement of the cathedral, which started in 1660, locates its main axis not in relation to the square, but with two streets that lead to it , in such a way that its main façade and apse interrupt, at the same time that they grandly finish off broad perspectives. After the Cathedral, numerous churches, from the full Baroque period, especially in the 18th century, alter the already flexible Renaissance line and discreetly turn it into Baroque, creating visual surprises by varying the street finishes. that some churches were built in such a way that, altering the original layout a bit, or daringly interrupting it in some cases, the facades, certain side facades, towers and domes, were raised in such a way that they come out in front of the passerby, polarizing perspectives. Today it is peculiar to Morelia, although not exclusive, the rhythmic harmony of its civil architecture lined up towards monumental finishes.
Perspectives that, from running open and free, become absorbed, delimited and held by the warm and gloomy calm of the interiors.
Thus, the facades of temples such as the Cathedral, San Francisco, the side portal of San Agustín, the main facade and the side portal of San José, Las Rosas, Guadalupe and Cristo Rey, end the streets.
The streets of Morelia are not only subjected to the rectilinear rigidity of indefinite extremes, nor do they zigzag or break arbitrarily, but rather have an intentional goal, a logic of urban variety that leaves nothing to chance. Their character is found in the just middle between monotony and picturesque.
STYLISTICS OF THE CITY
Perhaps the artistic feature that most impresses the visitor to Morelia is the harmonious unity that it exudes. At first glance, it seems that the city had been made at once; only when observing its different architectures can one appreciate the rich accumulation of eras and styles that make it up, founded and tempered by a formal will that brings together and orders through the construction material: the quarry. Here the styles seem to have evolved as necessary period manifestations, but attenuating their excesses.
Today, when so many cities are transformed presenting violent contrasts, this fulfilled aesthetic condition of "unity in variety" becomes more remarkable, which gives distinction and lordship to Morelia, lordship, by the way, grave and austere.
Monumental city, but little decorated, of planimetric expression with absolute preference for the two-dimensional. It is enough to see the Cathedral, where the pilaster reigns on the column and the reliefs on the bulk sculpture. On the outside alone, this Cathedral has more than two hundred pilasters and not a single column, an unusual and unique case among viceregal cathedrals.
The superabundant splendor was refined, giving preference to the elegant and sober monumentality over the ornamental richness, taste and criteria that are extended to the city, where the tone of moderation was chosen instead of that of euphoria.
Such is Morelia, whose greatest merit and strongest characteristic lies, without a doubt, in that knowing how to harmonize different eras and styles, in its conscious sobriety, without dogmatic rejections or easy surrender, in its power of assimilation, which retains what it considers to be it. convenient, but lets pass what is not identified with its own plastic sense conditioned through centuries.
