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The Church of El Carmen was part of the old convent that the Carmelite order founded in Valencia around 1281. We can still see the remains of its medieval past in the pointed arches, large dinning hall and the chapterhouse. A second Renaissance cloister was built afterwards, this time with Baroque elements.
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Among them, a façade which stands out resembling a large curtain covering the church. It was constructed in two phases: during the first phase, in the first half of the 17th century, the lower part was built by Gaspar Sant Martí. He gave it a very austere and classic appearance. However, after his death, the Baroque architects Juan Bautista Viñes and José Bonet erected the top part, with over elaborate features. The statues were sculpted by Leonardo José Capuz, a member of one of the important dynasties of Valencian sculptors in the early 18th century. On the right of the gate we can see the undulating shape of the wall and the dome with a lantern: that is the chapel of Nuestra Señora del Carmen, with an oval base and created by Vicente Gascó, one of the pioneers of Neo-classicism in Valencia.
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The convent was the first seat of the Regional Museum of Valencia where many works were impounded from convents and monasteries around the realm in 1837 after the Confiscation. Today, a part of the convent is being used by the Valencian Institute of Modern Art for its offices and is referred to as the 'Centre del Carme'.
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PALACE OF THE AUTONOMOUS VALENCIAN GOVERNMENT
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The construction of the Palace of the Generalitat dates from 1421, when it was built as the headquarters of the Autonomous Government or Regional Council, which represents the reign before the Parliament. The initial work on the central part of the building is of late Gothic style. It is divided into three floors (as were most private palaces of the city) with rectangular, moulded windows on the ground floor, triple windows with columns on the main floor (where the meeting hall used to be) and a gallery at the top.
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In 1518, the works of the Renaissance tower which looks towards the square of the Virgin (Plaza de la Virgen) were started. Most of the work was carried out by Joan Corbera, with classic pediments on the windows and decorations of Renaissance iconography. The top part, with a balustrade crowned with balls, dates from the late 16th century following the Escorial aesthetics. However, the twin tower, which looks over plaza de Manises, is a historical copy from 1952.
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The courtyard is highlighted inside by a Valencian Gothic staircase, as well as late Gothic doors with curved and straight arches. The Sala Nova in the tower, with magnificent roofs and a wooden top gallery is decorated with mythological and allegorical carvings and frescos representing the three houses of the Parliament, all by Joan Sarinyena and Vicent Requena.
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BASILICA OF DE LOS DESAMPARADOS
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The Basilica of Nuestra Señora de los Desamparados is a temple dedicated to the city's patron saint that was built between 1652 and 1667. Hence, the Basilica represents first Baroque work built in Valencia.
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The brotherhood of the Mare de Déu dels Innocents i Desemparats has its origins in the beginning of the 15th century. It was founded to help the mentally ill -or The Innocents- and to bury the abandoned corpses as well as the corpses of people who had been executed -The Desemparats-. Indeed, the image of the Virgin is a Gothic carving sculpture that used to lie over the corpses during funeral services. It is for this reason that the sculpture of the Virgin appears with her face looking downwards, thus we understand why a cushion was placed under her face during these solemn acts. Later on, the Virgin was covered with jewels and veils which today adorn her, and in the 18th century the two innocents were placed at her feet, a splendid work of art by Vergara.
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The Basilica was designed by Diego Martínez Ponce, an architect born in Requena de Urrana, and it is characterised by its oval dome, placed inside an irregular quadrilateral. Surrounding the central area there are several chapels and the Virgin's room, with a mechanism that allows the image of the Virgin to be turned for private veneration. The vault painting is a work by Antonio Palomino, and stands out for its perspective, seeming to open high up to the heavens, where the Virgin intercedes for the innocents before the Trinity.
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The archbishop Juan Tomás de Rocabertí founded the School of San Pío V, the present Fine Arts Museum and centre of the Royal Academy of San Carlos, in order to train priests. The school was designed by Juan Pérez Castiel in 1683, but its construction was delayed until well into the 18th century. It consists of two different parts: the school and the temple.
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The first former has a square base around a cloister, and the two façade towers overlooking river Turia give it the typical fortress appearance of the monasteries and palaces of the city. On this façade, the rustication of the corners are distinctive, ending in diamond shapes, together with the straight and curved alternated pediments that crown the windows, cornices and ends of vases and spheres.
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Rebuilt after being demolished in 1925, the temple is placed against this rectangle with its octagonal base and its enormous blue glazed dome. We also have to recognise the beauty of its façade, a work by José Mínguez, with two floors, projected pilasters and a curvaceous pediment. It was all created in the period between Baroque and Neo-classicism.
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Between 1820 and 1826 it was the centre of a charitable organisation and in 1835 the state took charge of it. The state used it as a military warehouse and as a military hospital during the Spanish Civil War. After the war it was converted into the Fine Arts Museum, and is currently being expanded. Among the museum's collections we can find the most important collection of Gothic art in Spain, as well as works by Juan de Juanes, Ribera, Velázquez, Goya, Pinazo or Sorolla, and other important artists.
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PALACE OF THE MARQUIS DE "DOS AGUAS"
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This palace is the result of radical alterations in the decade of 1740 on the rococo, ancestral house of Rabassa de Perellós family, owners of the estate of Dos Aguas. Its base is rectangular, with a central courtyard surrounded by towers; there is a ground floor and two heights, with the main, alabaster gate on one side, constructed by Ignacio de Vergara and designed by Hipólito Rovira.
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Under the Virgin´s image, there are two streams of flowing water which symbolise the title of the Marquis (as 'Dos Aguas' means 'two waters') and two side telamons that represent two rivers, the whole representation exhibiting grand extravagance.
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During this period, the façade of the palace was decorated with Rovira´s frescos, but in 1867 there was additional redecorating by José Ferrer and the paintings disappeared as they were left in damp and unfavourable surroundings. New stuccoworks in grey and rose tones (simulating marble) replaced the paintings, and some French style balconies were built and decorated with undulating rails.
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Inside, we can still find the 18th century carriages and the 19th century rooms, recently decorated in their original style. On the second floor we can visit the National Pottery Museum of González Martí, where an important collection of antique and contemporary pieces are kept.
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The Botanical Garden is run and maintained by the University of Valencia and was formerly a garden created in the 16th century (although the exact date is not known) to teach botany. The new garden, adapted to incorporate new scientific advances, was set up in the 18th century with the arrival of the Enlightenment and the support of economic institutions such as the Royal Society of Friends of the State,
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It was located in the so-called Tramoyeres garden, on the outskirts of calle Quart. Work on the new garden was conducted by the rector Vicent Blasco but did not start until at least 1803. The garden achieved its greatest splendour when the botany professor, Félix Pizcueta, was in charge between 1829 and 1863 and he improved the collections and achieved the assimilation of exotic plants.
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Later on, the garden was extended and the greenhouse of the Balsa was built. At the end of the 19th century, the architect Arturo Mélida constructed a large shed to protect plants from the sun. Today, the Botanical Gardens have an important collection with about three thousand species of trees and plants from all over the world. The most important collections are the palm and tropical trees collection and the cactus and other desert plants. Since 1987, the Botanical Gardens have been a research and teaching arm of the University boasting an independent faculty attached to the rector's office. All these achievements were possible after an important re-equipment programme was set up and finished by the year 2000.
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The Valencian people have always loved bull fights, not only ones on horseback, but also the more common standing bullfight. Until the 18th century, the shows took place in the market square, although some of them were later celebrated in the Plaza de Santo Domingo. The construction of Valencia's bullring in 1850 in Xátiva street gave the city a permanent arena capable of holding a massive public audience.
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The bullring is built as a compact brick cylinder, with four arch groups that remind us of those in the Nimes Amphitheatre or the Roman Colisseum. It is possibly the first building in the city to use exposed iron, particularly in the columns that hold the steps. When it was built, the bullring had a capacity for 16,800 people, a number in accordance with the huge passion for bullfighting at that time in Valencia and only comparable to football. Bullfighters such as Frascuelo were acclaimed as national heroes: history notes that some people pawned their own clothes in order to see these brave men fighting in the ring.
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The Taurine Museum is located in the arcade next to the ring and is open from Monday to Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. in summer and from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. in winter.
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The Market square has had a marked commercial vocation since the middle ages. This was where they had the market, first with stalls in the open air -the popular "parades" with white awnings and brightly coloured wares on show to the public-, which from 1839 were completed with a building made for this purpose. By the turn of the century, nevertheless, the need for larger-sized premises became clear.
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Designed in 1914 by architects Alejandro Soler March and Francisco Guardia Vial, former colleagues of Doménech Montaner, the work on the Central Market started in 1910 and went right on until 1928, then under the management of Enrique Viedma, being opened by Alphonse XIII.
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The ground plan of the building fits in the shape of the plot that it occupies, with a surface area of over 8000 m2, its roofing being designed in the form of innovative domes and different sloping surfaces. The reinforcement for the roofing reminds one of the great industrial iron architectures, such as the ones seen in the Norte Station or Colón market, while the perimeter walls - whose function as a support is practically non-existent, being instead simply for closing the premises in - are finished with polychrome ceramic skirts at their base and metallic "mallorquina" tiles at the top.
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This allegorical steel architecture embodies the luminosity of La Ceramo tile work in its symbolic ornamentation and the colouring of its stained-glass windows has all the richness of Valencia's market garden itself.
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The first station of the Compañía de Ferrocarriles del Norte railway company was located where the Calle de Ribera meets the Plaza del Ayuntamiento, but the alterations made to this zone in the early 20th century and the need to facilitate traffic around the perimeter made it advisable to move this away from the centre. It was originally intended to situate this at the crossroads of the main avenues, but in the end they opted for its present location.
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Designed by Valencian architect Demetrio Ribes, in 1906, and opened in 1917, this constitutes one of the best buildings in our civil architecture and is a monumental landmark representing the city.
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Its great inner roof over a metal structure with articulated supports was at the time a superb technological achievement, covering a span of 45 metres. The style was considered to be modernist, in the line known as "Sezesión Vienesa", but it is the peculiar way Ribers interpreted this style which gives it such notable singularity.
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The main facade attempts to compensate for its accentuated horizontality with three prominent bodies, two of these at the ends forming towers and the third in the centre marking the access. On this there are a large number of colourist decorative details, with numerous ceramic pictures reproducing different types of flower decoration and many coats of arms of the Company and the City. The door of the first access is decorated with two mosaic panels designed by painter José Mongrell.
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The exuberant decoration of the vestibule is also noteworthy, with a painstaking design of the ticket offices and wooden supports with incrusted mosaics and ceramic decoration with countless Trencadís, broken pieces of tile, as the facing of walls and ceiling, all forming an ensemble of great beauty.
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VALENCIAN INSTITUTE OF MODERN ART
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Open to the public in 1989 in order to foster the research and knowledge of 20th century art, the IVAM has become one of the major contemporary art museums on the international scene during the last decade. It has two centres where it performs its activities: the Julio González centre, a recently built structure in calle Guillem de Castro, and the Centre del Carme, which has been installed inside the old Carmelite Convent and which can be visited from the calle Museo.
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The Julio González Centre is a modern building, with an impressive façade that features a large glass lobby beneath a projecting canopy. Inside, it houses several galleries with an austere design so that visitors will not be distracted as they contemplate the artworks. The museum's collection covers the main avant-garde art trends of the 20th century, which include the first stages of the abstract movement, typographic and photomontage, European informalism, Pop Art, or the New Figurative art, and it also keeps track of the latest trends at the beginning of the new century. There is also an underground room where one can contemplate a large section of the city's early-Medieval wall, which was discovered during the building's construction.
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On the other hand, the Centre del Carme is located in an outstanding historical building. This Convent, founded by the Carmelite order in the 18th century, was chosen as the site for the Fine Arts Museum and the San Carlos Academy after its sale by the Church. The complex has rooms with Gothic, Renaissance and nineteenth century styles, and it has been recently restored to accommodate temporary exhibitions. The 19th-Century Valencia Museum is also located here, where it is also possible to see the archaeological ruins of a street from the Islamic era in a museum setting.
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Work of the architect Vicente Traver Tomás, this palatial building homes the Archbishop Residence ecclesiastic premises. Raised in a delirious sevillian-influenced baroque historicism, it has bare brick façades on stone bases, mezzanine with framed gaps, main floor balconies with mouldings, and an impressive central block. It was reconstructed after the Civil War, although it preserves some of its original rooms.
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