There are cities in Andalusia hiding places that we did not think existed. Marbella is one of those cities beyond its beaches, glittering luxury and fascination of its exclusive developments and marinas has places that embody the best Andalusian architecture.
The old quarter of Marbella are unique examples of urban man-made, miraculously preserved in the heart of a city overlooking the Mediterranean.
The municipality looks Marbella on the Costa del Sol over fifteen miles, facing a sea always blue and behind the peaks of the Sierra Blanca sharp. Fifty years ago there were no developments today represent the quintessence of luxury Andalusian. Marbella was a sleepy village, fishing tradition, halfway between Gibraltar and Malaga and a crossing north tempt travelers with the romantic mountains of Ronda.
The Plaza de los Naranjos is the heart of the historic city. It extends offshore, away from a coastline that until recent centuries represented an alarming threat to the stability of the population.
The square was urbanized in the sixteenth century, but it is known that under its foundations sleep history of the Arab village. On one side stands the town hall, baroque and renovated over the last three centuries on dozens of occasions.And beside her other mansions stand in the same time, sponsored by major names throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth made a fortune trading with the main Mediterranean ports.
Streets and squares
In the Plaza de los Naranjos, animated clock for its colorful terraces and the incessant hum of their sources of clear water, are born white, narrow streets, curl and mostly pedestrian, which reproduce the patterns of the most authentic Andalusian architecture and recognizable.
No large developments of apartment blocks and faceless behemoths of concrete threatening. In the historic center of Marbella there is still room for the bougainvillea and jasmine, to the pot with colorful flowers and the sweet shade of the porches and courtyards with lemon and fresh water wells.
The Church of the Incarnation is the main temple of Marbella. It is located near the plaza and has in its belfry visual reference of the old town. The facade is baroque, carved stone and reference passages from the Old and New Testament. Its curves and moldings evoke the American colonial architecture and interior keeps the proportion of the ships basilica divided into three blocks and a roof truss. Then there are the chapels, some more valuable than others, and an organ, considered an irreplaceable piece of religious treasures from Malaga and its province.
Museum of Contemporary Prints
Twenty years ago, a November 28, 1992, opened in Marbella Spanish Contemporary Engraving Museum. He did it in the halls of noble Hospital Bazán and he ordered one of the most interesting collection of prints of all those lavished by Spain. Founded in 1568, the Hospital Bazán is one of the landmarks of the city of Malaga. Its interior was recovered a few decades ago to locate in it the work of engravers and lithographers in the country among them Picasso, Miró, Dalí, Chillida, Tàpies, Saura, Vilató, Canogar, Gordillo or Wheel, among others.
The efforts of a handful of Marbella Hospital Bazán made the move from being an ancient and dilapidated building to an art center. When the Museum of Contemporary Spanish Engravings Marbella opened and was the cornerstone of the Costa del Sol was not hard to convince artists and dealers that the Hospital Bazán would be the best place to locate their collections.
The time was right to those who believed in this project and today its rooms house temporary exhibitions that are referenced in the Spanish art world. Another reason, in short, to know the old Marbella, one that few know.
