User:Dmakeshi/Episcopal Palace, Astorga

"This Wikipedia page had a brief history on the castle so i elaborated on that by giving more details and more specific dates during the construction. i also added more information on the approval process Gaudi and Bishop Juan had to go through to approve the new plan for the palace. there was also more conflictions after Bishop Juan's death that led to Gaudis resignation and the aftermath that occurred leading the palaces halt on construction. I elaborated on more of those efforts as well. i also added more on the depth of the design process Gaudi intended for the project."

This would've been my contribution to the article but i had difficulty with the citing on the scholarly sources i had for the article.

When the original Episcopal Palace was destroyed by a fire on December 23, 1886, Bishop Juan Bautista Grau y Vallespinos of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Astorga decided to assign the design of the new building to his friend Antoni Gaudí. The two had become friends when Grau was Vicar-General in the Archdiocese of Tarragona and had inaugurated a church for which the architect had designed the high altar. Antoni Gaudi would accept this offer in the year 1887.

When Gaudí received the commission, he was still working at the Palau Güell and the Crypt of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, and thus he could not move to Astorga to study the terrain and the area of the new construction. He therefore asked the bishop to send him photographs so Gaudí could plan the new project. Gaudí sent back his design of several drawings and with the approval of Bishop Juan, the approval of Conferencia de Astorga and the Ministry to the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando. It was approved in February 1889 after many modifications that Gaudi himself felt needed to be modified before construction began. The first stone was placed in June the following year.

The edifice, built in gray granite from El Bierzo, is in a neo-medieval style harmonizing with its location, including the cathedral in particular. It does, however, also feature some of the elements typical of the later Gaudí, such as the arches of the entrance with buttresses, and the chimneys integrated in the side façades. Gaudí had devised a five-meter tall angel to crown the façade, but it was never mounted. The façade has four cylindrical towers and is surrounded by a ditch.

In 1893, after the death of Bishop Grau, Gaudí resigned over disagreements with the council, halting the construction for several years. The palace was completed between 1907 and 1915 by Ricardo Garcia Guereta. During the Spanish Civil War, the building served as the local headquarters of the Falange. In 1956 Julià Castelltort, a Catalan, began restoration works to adapt the building as a bishop's residence. Later, Bishop Marcelo González Martín promoted the conversion to the current role of the palace, a museum of religious art called Museo de los Caminos, dedicated to the Way of Santiago.

Design

Antoni Gaudis attitude medieval architecture is not quite clear, he tend to work more towards the abstraction of Gothic architecture and other influences throughout his career. Gaudi did preparatory readings