The Goyeneche Palace in

Nuevo Baztán Nuevo Baztán is a municipality southeast of Madrid, near Alcalá de Henares, Spain. It consists of a small historic centre and modern housing estates. The historic centre was designed as an industrial and housing complex laid out on a grid pla ...

Community of Madrid The Community of Madrid (; es, Comunidad de Madrid ) is one of the seventeen autonomous communities of Spain. It is located in the centre of the Iberian Peninsula, and of the Central Plateau (''Meseta Central''). Its capital and largest munici ...

, Spain, is an eighteenth-century palace with a linked church. It was designed by

José de Churriguera José is a predominantly Spanish and Portuguese form of the given name Joseph. While spelled alike, this name is pronounced differently in each language: Spanish ; Portuguese (or ). In French, the name ''José'', pronounced , is an old vernacul ...

, an architect known for a profusely decorated style known as

Churrigueresque Churrigueresque (; Spanish: ''Churrigueresco''), also but less commonly "Ultra Baroque", refers to a Spanish Baroque style of elaborate sculptural architectural ornament which emerged as a manner of stucco decoration in Spain in the late 17th c ...

. The church's interior is an example of this

baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

style, whereas the exterior is less ornate. The building is one of a number of palaces in Spain and Peru which are associated with the Goyeneche family. Nuevo Baztán was built as a model village by Juan de Goyeneche (1656–1735) to accommodate industrial and agricultural projects. The dedication of the church to Saint

Francis Xavier Francis Xavier (born Francisco de Jasso y Azpilicueta; Latin: ''Franciscus Xaverius''; Basque: ''Frantzisko Xabierkoa''; French: ''François Xavier''; Spanish: ''Francisco Javier''; Portuguese: ''Francisco Xavier''; 7 April 15063 December 1 ...

reflects the Navarrese origins of the Goyeneche family.

Conservation and access

Since the 1940s the palace and church have been protected for their historical interest. They currently have the

heritage listing This list is of heritage registers, inventories of cultural properties, natural and man-made, tangible and intangible, movable and immovable, that are deemed to be of sufficient heritage value to be separately identified and recorded. In many ...

of ''

Bien de Interés Cultural A Bien de Interés Cultural is a category of the heritage register in Spain. The term is also used in Venezuela and other Spanish-speaking countries. The term literally means a "good of cultural interest" ("goods" in the economic sense) and inclu ...

'' along with two squares which form their setting. In 2007 it was reported that the palace was in a poor state of conservation.

Current use

There have been proposals to restore the palace for use as an art gallery, although the project appears to have been put on hold. The idea was a collaboration between the Community of Madrid and the art-collector Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza who indicated her willingness to display items from her private collection on long-term loan. The palace has extensive cellars built for storage purposes and these are used to house an interpretation centre. There are also guided tours of the palace itself.

External links

Asociación del Patrimonio Artístico de Nuevo Baztán

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Goyeneche Palace, Nuevo Baztan Palaces in the Community of Madrid Churches in the Community of Madrid Baroque architecture in the Community of Madrid Bien de Interés Cultural landmarks in the Community of Madrid