Spanish Baroque ephemeral architecture
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Ephemeral architecture had a special relevance in the Spanish Baroque, as it fulfilled diverse aesthetic, political, religious and social functions. On the one hand, it was an indispensable component of support for architectural achievements, carried out in a perishable and transitory way, which allowed a cheapening of materials and a way to capture new designs and more daring and original solutions of the new Baroque style, which could not be done in conventional constructions. On the other hand, its volubility made possible the creation of a wide range of productions designed according to their diverse functionality: triumphal arches for the reception of kings and aristocratic personages, catafalques for religious ceremonies, burial mounds for funerary ceremonies and diverse scenarios for social or religious events, such as the feast of Corpus Christi or Holy Week.
These works were usually profusely decorated and developed an iconographic program that emphasized the power of the ruling classes of the time, both political and religious: in the political sphere it exalted the omnipotent power of the absolutist monarchy, while in the religious sphere it praised the spiritual dominion of the Counter-Reformation Church. They used to have a high propagandistic component, as vehicles of ostentation of these ruling classes, so they were mainly addressed to the people—that were the recipients of these grand ceremonies and spectacles.
Although there are no material remains of this type of performance, they are known thanks to drawings and engravings, as well as literary accounts of the time, which described them in great detail. Many writers and chroniclers devoted themselves to this type of descriptions, even giving rise to a new literary genre, the "Chronicle."