Casa montañesa

Cantabrian traditional houses in Asón (Soba). It can appreciate the balcony or sunny covered by an extended overhang.

Casa montañesa between medians in Viérnoles. It can see the walls of masonry, called firewalls, on which is supported the sunny and framing a porch.

The type of architecture referred to as Casa montañesa is a form of traditional construction of La Montaña and extended by the communities of Cantabria, east of Asturias and northern Castile and León in northern Spain.^[1]

It developed during the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, gaining wider dissemination by the end of 19th century. During this last period, with the architect Leonardo Rucabado, it became popular in Cantabria as a kind of regional architecture, determined by the historicist evocation of the La Montaña architecture of past centuries. This trend then continued with his pupil Javier González de Riancho.

Features

This type of traditional country house is the most characteristic of Cantabria. It highlights the south facade, open to the sun and light, while others offer thick walls of rough masonry. The corners are usually of ashlars with re-enclosure at all the spans. The entrance is through a gate of one or two arcs, enough to shelter the barrow, tools and wood depth, giving way to estragal from which is distributed the kitchen (though sometimes this is on the second floor), stables, wine cellar, pantry and stairs to the upper floor. In some areas, there are shoe to access directly from the outside to the upper floor.

On this floor are the bedrooms, of which the top two, plus the central hall, facing the sunny. To this it must add the tascón or barn. The interior walls originally are usually made of wood, although in recent times have been replaced by brick.

The sunny is the most typical element of this construction. It is a balcony run with wood rail protected from the wind and rain for the side walls flying in tandem, as a stony ridges of the flaw of the factory of the facade, to give support to a forward very outgoing, being topped at the bottom with a crown as a bracket generally takes the form of stub.

At the top, these walls are usually topped by a trims rough but of classic profiles, serving to support beams of the edge as securing the canes that its form the forward. The wood, who leads work of carving and windlass, usually painted of dark brown.

Side walls

Built as a firewall under the Herrerian influence as Juan de Herrera was Spaniard.

References

Bibliography

• Leopoldo Torres Balbás, The vernacular housing in Spain, Madrid 1946
• E. Ortiz de la Torre, Artistic La Montaña Santander 1929
• Fernando García Mercadal, The vernacular house in Spain, Espasa Calpe, 1930
• José Luis García Grinda, Vernacular architecture of Burgos, 1988

References

1. It should not be confused with casona montañesa, which is a different type of construction.