Mudejar Architecture in Seville - History, Highlights & Wher, Seville, Spain

Mudéjar is a beautiful architectural style, unique to Spain, that fuses together Islamic and Christian styles. It can be found across Spain - but one of the best cities to see it is in Seville.

In this piece, I explore Seville’s Mudéjar heritage, and outline the best places to see the style in the city.

For centuries (711-1492), Spain was known as Al-Andalus, Muslim territory ruled by the Moors. When it was conquered by Christian forces in the 15th century during the Reconquista, not all of the Muslim population left.

Those that stayed were given the name ‘Mudéjars’, and many were employed by the new Catholic elite, who were fans of the Islamic styles, as artisans and architects. These craftsmen created one of Spain’s most unique cultural legacies: Mudéjar art, a gorgeous blend of Islamic architectural elements and styles incorporated into Christian structures.

The golden age of this art form spanned from the 13th to the 16th centuries. In Seville, we can see early Mudéjar masterpieces in the Alcázar, the Casa de Pilatos, and the Giralda Tower.

As culture and politics shifted in Spain, the style declined, replaced by a wave of Renaissance and Baroque. But in the late 19th and early 20th century, Mudéjar came back into fashion. This new style of Mudéjar was called, imaginatively, Neo-Mudéjar. ...... (follow the instructions below for accessing the rest of this article).