Moorish Revival is a 19th-century Western architectural style that borrows motifs from the Islamic architecture of al-Andalus and North Africa. It is one of the many revival styles of that century, alongside Gothic Revival, Renaissance Revival and Neoclassicism.
The interest began when European designers started surveying and publishing the Alhambra in Granada in the early 19th century. The romantic view of it — encouraged by Washington Irving’s Tales of the Alhambra of 1832 — supplied a decorative vocabulary that was taken up across Europe and America.
Characteristics
- Horseshoe arch — the arch that curves back inwards below its widest point; the clearest identifying feature
- Muqarnas — honeycomb niches under arches, domes and cornices
- Geometric and vegetal ornament — arabesques and strictly geometric tilework, usually in plaster or ceramic
- Onion or bulbous domes and slender turrets
- Polychromy — banded brickwork or tilework used to articulate the façade
Application
The style was rarely used for ordinary houses and much more often for buildings meant to make an impression:
- Synagogues. From the mid-19th century many Jewish communities in Central Europe and the United States adopted the style, associating these forms with the golden age of Jewry in medieval Muslim Spain. A well-known example is the New Synagogue on Oranienburger Strasse in Berlin (1859–1866), whose façade draws on the Alhambra
- Entertainment architecture — theatres, bath houses, spa buildings, pavilions and exhibition halls
- Smoking rooms and conservatories in villas, as an intentionally exotic interior accent
Restoration calls for care: the ornament is usually plaster, gypsum or glazed ceramic and is correspondingly fragile. Replacing it with concrete or plastic imitation damages the heritage value.
Related terms
- Muqarnas
- Ornament
- Listed building
- Gothic Revival
- Dome
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