Trevor Huxham

Do you have any un-memories? Something you know that happened to you when you were really young but you don’t remember? Like meeting your great-aunt Genevieve when you were a toddler, moving across the country as a baby, or—and I’m stating the obvious here—being born. Something I know that I’ve done before—but which I have zero memory at all of—is visiting the coastal city of Galveston, Texas, as a little tyke. My parents have a photo on their fireplace mantel of my dad and me at Galveston Beach, with him showing me some seashells…apparently it was my first time at the beach, ever. Historic building in the Strand But I have zero memory of this seashell encounter ever happening, so when I went “back” to this gorgeous city southeast of Houston over Memorial Day weekend, it really was like seeing it for the first time. I loved taking a daytrip to this historic Gulf Coast city, where I made “new” memories by exploring some historic districts, appreciating excellent architectur...

Eighty-seven—that’s the number of Catholic cathedrals in Spain today. Although I didn’t grow up Catholic (I’m a Southern Baptist turned Episcopalian), this church nerd managed to visit 26 of Spain’s cathedrals that span a multitude of architectural styles and layouts when I lived in the country from 2012 to 2015. Why cathedrals? There’s nothing intrinsic about a cathedral that automatically makes them big and beautiful; they’re simply home to the cathedra or seat of a bishop. But from the Middle Ages onward, bishops enjoyed great social status, and the churches where they presided reflected this prestige with monumental works of architecture. (Fun fact: Barcelona’s soaring Sagrada Família is not a cathedral, as it is not the seat of the bishop of the diocese of Barcelona). With so many cathedrals to see in Spain, it’s hard to know what to focus on. Below I’ve composed a list of my top ten favorite ones, which includes crowd-favorites like the cathedral of Sevilla as well as of...

There’s some places you visit for the food— San Sebastián in the Basque Country comes to mind, with bars that are literally overflowing with tiny bites of pintxos —and then there’s others you visit for ancient ruins—think Arles in southern France with Roman amphitheaters and sewers. And there are other cities you spend time in for the architecture. Many of us live in a world of formulaic McMansions, soul-crushing strip malls, big box stores with 30-year shelf lives, and cold glass-and-steel office towers. We travel to cities with excellent architecture because these cities have a sense of place and because they remind us of the beauty in the world. Palau de la Música Catalana I think this is one of the big draws Barcelona has on many visitors. Yes, the cozy medieval streets in the Gothic Quarter are nice and all, but the gridded Eixample district, where the city expanded around the turn of the century, is where Barcelona really shines. Grand apartment homes were constructe...

As I began my final year teaching English and living in Santiago de Compostela , I decided I had better get workin’ on my “Spain bucket list” before it came time to move back home to Texas. One of the items on this list involved going on a guided tour of the historical buildings that belong to the University of Santiago de Compostela, the major university in northwest Spain. Although most folks know of Santiago as simply the endpoint of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route (and home to a pretty fine cathedral ), the city also has a tradition of higher learning that dates back to the 1500s. This guided tour gave me a more complete look at buildings I walked past every day in the old town while giving me access to spaces normally off-limits to casual visitors. College of Fonseca The courtyard The tour starts at the cradle of the city’s university, the Colexio de Fonseca.  The college began as university founder Archbishop Alfonso de Fonseca’s family mansion but was c...

The main hall Come to Santiago de Compostela in rainy northwest Spain and you’ll inevitably be drawn to the city’s alluring, sprawling cathedral . After all, as the supposed resting place of the Apostle St. James, the towering church draws hundreds of thousands of pilgrims every year who trek the Camino de Santiago on foot. But another fascinating site hides in plain sight, leaning up against the cathedral’s walls in the monumental Obradoiro square: the Pazo de Xelmírez . Although in the Galician language the word pazo  historically refers to a nobleman’s luxurious country house, in this case it simply means “palace,” as it continues to function as the official residence of the archbishop of Santiago. I cropped this photo so you can see it better in the bottom left

As a major architecture nerd, there’s nothing I love exploring while traveling so much as a sprawling castle, a light-filled church, or a stately mansion. I really enjoy getting to see in person how western architectural styles evolved over the centuries, from the most primitive of pre-Romanesque to the fascinating contemporary stuff built today. And while I may not be a Roman Catholic, I nevertheless did grow up in the church, so cathedrals hold a special place in my heart. Over the past two years it’s been exciting to check out all five cathedrals located in Galicia, Spain’s northwestern region, from Santiago de Compostela’s monumental masterpiece to the humble mountain sanctuary of Mondoñedo. Let me share with you the interesting churches that head up the five Galician dioceses. 1) Lugo West façade Like all the rest of the cathedrals in Galicia, Lugo’s is at its core a Romanesque church, characterized by thick, heavy walls and columns with narrow slits for windows and ...

Church of Santa María del Naranco Out of all the places we had on the hitlist for our Roommate Road Trip across Spain’s northern coast, I was most looking forward to Oviedo, the capital of Asturias. This city’s pleasant old town, nestled between green mountains and full of restaurants that serve hearty traditional dishes like fabada bean stew , reminded me a lot of Santiago de Compostela’s . Oviedo kept showing up on my travel radar because of its impressive collection of monuments that date back to the 800s CE—yes, you read that correctly; not 1800 but 800 . My inner history geek couldn’t wait to check out three well-preserved pre-Romanesque churches,  built in a style that blossomed in this part of Spain during the otherwise gloomy Dark Ages. What does it mean to be “pre-Romanesque”? Carved capital on an engaged column Also know as Asturian art,  this architectural style was born in the earliest days of Spanish history, when the tiny Kingdom of Asturia...

Rooftop view Today I’m finally getting around to writing about the road trip my housemates and I went on along Spain’s northern coast…in October. Sorry, guys! I’m so far behind, but I’ve got a long backlog of posts to work through. Our first stop along this tour of Spain’s most beautiful cliffs, beaches, mountains, and countrysides was the seaside village of Comillas in tiny coastal Cantabria. After warming up with the last fall rays of sunshine over a short  cortado  coffee, we packed in to our rental car and headed out of our base in San Vicente de la Barquera to Comillas. Sunflower tiles This town wouldn’t even have been on my radar had it not been home to one of the three buildings that architect Antoni Gaudí designed outside his native Catalunya. In fact, it was one of his first: El Capricho de Gaudí. Earlier in the year I had visited the other two commissions he took outside Catalunya, the Casa de los Botines in León and the Episcopal Palace in Astorga ,...

There are a few parts of Spain that I know really well, places like Jaén province in Andalucía to the south, the populated western coast of Galicia, or even central Madrid to a degree. Others are just completely off the radar for me: Madrid’s bedroom community of Guadalajara, coastal Castelló de la Plana, or the Basque Country’s inland capital, Vitoria-Gasteiz. Had it not been for my friend and fellow Spain blogger Kaley (who writes at Y Mucho Más ), the northern Spanish city of Zamora would have been relegated to this proverbial no-man’s-land in my mind as it typically gets lost between pilgrims walking the Camino de Santiago to the north (e.g., Burgos, León, etc.) or weekenders hitting up Salamanca and Ávila to the south. View of Zamora from across the Duero River You see, Kaley’s husband is a native of Zamora, and so, naturally, she has talked a lot about the city and province of the same name a lot on her blog. Having followed her posts for the past several years, I was e...

Take away the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, and the city—both past and present—would literally fall apart. Santiago, the capital of Spain’s northwestern region of Galicia, was founded on the belief that the relics of the Apostle James the Greater were discovered in the year 820 in this lonely outpost of Christian Spain—back when the Muslim Caliphate of Córdoba dominated the peninsula. Over the centuries, devotion to St. James grew and grew, causing millions of Catholics to set off from all corners of Europe and hike on foot to Galicia: the Camino de Santiago or “Way of St. James.” The passageway leading into Praza do Obradoiro The cathedral we can see today is actually the third such church to occupy the purported burial ground of St. James. Constructed in the austere Romanesque style between 1075 and 1211, grand Gothic cloisters were later built to the south and an over-the-top remodeling left almost no corner untouched during the Baroque era. There’s a lot going on her...

Santiago de Compostela, the capital of Spain’s northwestern region of Galicia, is by no means a big city, reaching barely 100,000 on weekdays (and plummeting on weekends and school vacations when students go back home to mamá ). Its monumental old town, while impressive, is often overshadowed by the cathedral’s west façade, and the ugly new town has buildings of perhaps ten floors at most. Because of this I put the word “skyline” in scare quotes in this post’s title. Central dome, Church of San Martiño Pinario However, if you can manage to escape the tourist (and pilgrim) madness along Rúa do Franco south of the cathedral, you’ll likely find yourself in Santiago’s major public park, the Alameda . Walking north along the grand, tree-lined esplanade called the Paseo da Ferradura , you’ll eventually end up at a wide, semicircular mirador , or lookout point. From this strategic location, you can take in the whole old town as it sprawls from north to south. You’ll notice that the...

When you think of Santiago de Compostela, you usually think of moody Romanesque architecture, over-the-top gilded Baroque churches, and charming homes with glassed-in balconies and overhanging arches. So it might come as a surprise that the city is actually home to a huge project of contemporary architecture built on Monte Gaiás, a hill southeast of the city center. Called the Cidade da Cultura de Galicia  or “City of Culture of Galicia,” this ambitious arts and cultural center was designed by New York architect Peter Eisenman and constructed between 2001 and 2011. Cidade da Cultura The Cidade currently consists of the following four buildings: Arquivo de Galicia: the “Archives of Galicia,” which stores the archives of all newspapers and publications in Galicia Biblioteca de Galicia: the “Library of Galicia,” which is a repository of all books published in the Galician language or dealing with Galicia in other languages Museo de Galicia: the “Museum of Galicia,” which...

Few know that the Spanish city of León  coincidentally has the same name as the Spanish word for “lion,” kind of how Cork, Ireland, sounds like the word for the woody bottle stopper we put in wine bottles. This bustling provincial capital was founded as an encampment for Roman legions, but over the centuries, the Latin name for this legionary town ( Legio ) converged with the word for lion ( leo ) as Latin grew up and became Spanish. Apparently this distinction was also lost on the locals, as a purple lion is now the city’s heraldic symbol. Fun! León Cathedral I was excited to finally get the chance to explore this city on a cold, drizzly long weekend back in March. Following the Camino de Santiago, but in reverse, I left my apartment in Santiago and caught the train east out toward the broad Castilian meseta , or central plateau. As the last major stop along the French Way pilgrimage that ends in Santiago, León is rightly famous for its French-inspired Gothic cathedral. ...

Perhaps the highlight of my late winter trip around Aragón , a landlocked region in east-central Spain, was the lonely, forgotten city of Teruel.  Although it’s the capital city of the province of the same name, Teruel is home to merely 35,000 people and is one of the remotest corners of the country; Teruel doesn’t even a direct train connection with Madrid! The area was so isolated up until recently that a group called Teruel Existe  (“Teruel Exists”) was formed to bring attention to the neglected province. Thanks to their efforts, a highway now connects  Zaragoza  with Valencia  and passes through Teruel. Teruel Cathedral So how did I come to love this scarcely-heard-of outpost in middle-of-nowhere Spain? Well, for one, several of the city’s monuments form the core of the Mudéjar Architecture of Aragón World Heritage Site.  Teruel has a priceless collection of unique medieval architecture lying in plain sight! My inner history and ...

When I was back home in Texas last summer, I decided to educate myself on all the architectural styles that have left their mark across the centuries in western Europe. I had a vague idea of what Romanesque , Gothic , or Classical Revival  buildings looked like, but I would have been stumped had you asked me to explain what exactly made each time period stand out from the others. So I embarked on  History of Architecture I ,  a free iTunes U course taught by Ohio State University professor Jacqueline Gargus. Although I have no background in architecture, engineering, or design, I found it super easy to jump right to Prof. Gargus’s lively discussion of western architecture. Ceiling of the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore Watching these lectures really helped me to grow in my knowledge of the major styles, and I now feel comfortable explaining the differences and revolutionary ideas of each era. I also enjoyed being introduced to some of the most significant exam...

This week on the blog, I’m celebrating works by the famous turn-of-the-century Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí, who designed everything from churches to mansions to public parks. This post is the last installment in a seven-part series; check out the introduction here ! Façade of Casa Vicens This little-seen house is visited by none but the most dedicated Gaudí fans (i.e., yours truly), so when I managed to turn onto C/ Carolines during a sunny Barcelona siesta, I ran into only a handful of fellow travelers, some toting guidebooks and others cameras. I lingered for a few minutes, snapped some pictures, and headed back down a major street to get some  croquetas for lunch. Casa Vicens is—surprise, surprise—still a private home, and so tourists have to be content to admire its architecture from behind iron grillwork. Finished in 1889 at the request of Manuel Vicens, a man in the brick and tile business, the house has subtle nods to Vicens’ industry: warm, red bricking and ha...

This week on the blog, I’m celebrating works by the famous turn-of-the-century Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí, who designed everything from churches to mansions to public parks. This post is the sixth in a seven-part series; check out the introduction here ! Colònia Güell patio Eusebi Güell was one of Antoni Gaudí’s most important patrons, commissioning the Palau Güell mansion in Barcelona’s old town and the popular Park Güell . For this post, however, we’re leaving crowded Barcelona for a quiet village on the outskirts of the Barcelona area, Santa Coloma de Cervelló. It was here that Señor Güell moved his textile operations at the turn of the century, establishing an industrial estate to be run by the business on behalf of his employees. Called  Colònia Güell ,  this  company town  stood out from its contemporaries because Güell actually tried to improve his workers’ lives instead of focusing on profits-profits-profits; e.g., he sponsored the construction ...

This week on the blog, I’m celebrating works by the famous turn-of-the-century Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí, who designed everything from churches to mansions to public parks. This is the fifth post in a seven-part series; check out the introduction here ! Palau Güell from the street The only work by Antoni Gaudí in Barcelona’s old city , Palau Güell (“Güell Mansion”) fits in with the medieval feel of the neighborhood and reflects the architect’s budding creativity. Owned by the same Eusebi Güell as #3 ( the park ) and #6 ( the church ) in this blog series, the mansion was Gaudí’s first commission for the textile magnate. Although the Catalan word palau is best translated as “mansion,” its cognate, “palace,” could just as easily be used to describe this palatial home. Staircase Residents and guests would enter from the street under one of two eye-like parabolic arches decorated in intricate ironwork. Once inside, their horses and carriages would be led down to an ...

This week on the blog, I’m celebrating works by the famous turn-of-the-century Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí, who designed everything from churches to mansions to public parks. This post is the fourth in a seven-part series; check out the introduction here ! Façade of the “La Pedrera” apartment block Between 1906 and 1912, Antoni Gaudí worked on the most distinctive apartment block on the Passeig de Gràcia, a lovely, wide north-south avenue spanning Barcelona’s  Eixample  district or modern, gridded “expansion.” He created a structure at the request of the industrialist Pere Milà that is actually two separate apartments joined by two oblong courtyards and an other-worldly rooftop patio with a wavy floor and weird chimneys. It’s officially called  Casa Milà, Catalan for “the Milà House,” but informally, everyone calls it  La Pedrera  because it looks like an open-face rock  quarry.  Part of the reason the wavy façade is so dramatic has to do ...

This week on the blog, I’m celebrating works by the famous turn-of-the-century Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí, who designed everything from churches to mansions to public parks. This post is the third in a seven-part series; check out the introduction here ! Entrance to Park Güell Park Güell is one of the most famous tourist destinations in Barcelona. First, a little background on who this Güell guy was (pronounced “GWAY-ee” [gweʎ]), since he shows up in two more buildings I’m talking about later in the week. Eusebi Güell made a fortune in the textile business as the Spanish region of Catalunya rapidly industrialized in the late 19th century. Early on in Gaudí’s life, the two met and  Güell became one of the architect’s biggest patrons.  Between 1900 and 1914, work was done on an idealized subdivision for the wealthy on land purchased by Güell, but because few of the upper class at the time cared for Gaudí’s style and/or Modernisme, the project was halted. Still, both...