By Jeffrey Clifford
The Spanish Renaissance style used to design the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC) combines elements that help the architecture endure the test of time. TTUHSC carried an estimated $83 million price tag to build, with 219,900 square feet, standing five stories tall. Perkins & Will, a global design practice founded in 1935, designed the building in collaboration with El Paso firm In*Situ Architecture, with Sundt Construction, Inc., breaking ground in the spring of 2017. Texas Tech University says the facility allows the university to increase its enrollment in the medical school and doubles its research in El Paso. While TTUHSC is relatively new, the design style stems from the Spanish Renaissance style, dating to the 15th century, rooted in centuries of tradition developed by master architects who stretch back to Gothic architecture.
Image caption: Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (Courtesy of Texas Tech)
Spanish Renaissance today encompasses an evolution of different periods and factions. The Moors, Muslim inhabitants of North Africa and the Middle East, and the Spanish Muslims created spaces that allowed for more airflow, thus reducing temperatures while maintaining a beautiful light and shadow, accomplished through overlapping arches and an abundance of windows. With the rising cost of heating and cooling, this design element remains relevant in contemporary architecture. The Moors, whose influence on Spanish architecture began in the 8th century and became an integral piece of the style, created a blend of Muslim and Spanish architecture best known for its horseshoe-shaped arch. The Mudéjar style reinterpreted Iberian Christian styles of architecture through a Muslim lens, primarily between the 13th and 16th centuries, with Romanesque, Gothic, and Renaissance structures ornamented with Islamic decorative motifs. The arch is a powerful element used in various styles and is known not only for its aesthetics but also for its impressive ability to provide a great deal of support in a small area.
In the introduction to Gothic Legacies: Four Centuries of Tradition and Innovation in Art and Architecture, Laura Cleaver details that the Gothic art and architecture of the Middle Ages inspired many artists to produce a variety of interpretations in post-medieval visual culture. She explains that “Gothic” was a catchall term for various buildings and created pieces that evolved after the Middle Ages. Gothic architecture emphasizes vertical lines, from the arches supporting the ceiling to the buttresses reinforcing the walls and towers. The lines are functional and visual, fading and reappearing into view, depending on the viewer’s perspective. Gothic architecture is also recognized for its enormous size, highlighting the elements used to create the building. These elements do not compete but complement each other, allowing the eyes to pass over each point smoothly. The use of lines, scale, perspective, and towers that unmistakably characterize the Gothic style is evident in the Laon Cathedral, a Roman Catholic Church in France. Numerous other journalistic articles have cited the cathedral as an example of Gothic architecture and displayed the elements in a manner easy for the layperson to understand. Gothic architecture significantly impacted the development of the Spanish Renaissance style, a distinctive architectural style that continues to influence modern architecture.
With TTUHSC, each piece of the building mimicking the Spanish Renaissance style needed to be brought together at the right time and place, much like ingredients a baker might use to produce a satisfying and visually appealing result. In her article, “Renaissance in Spain,” Dr. Lauren Kilroy-Ewbank explains that the Spanish Renaissance resulted from many diverse cultures and religions, including Islam, Christianity, and Judaism, each bringing something different to the recipe that comprises the Gothic architectural style. Kilroy-Ewbank says these religions coexisted in Spain for most of the Middle Ages and only ended after 1492 with the fall of Granada. While they ceased to coexist in Spain, they brought ideas and techniques together that fused with Gothic architecture to form the architectural Spanish Renaissance style that still exists today. Juan Castilla Brazales, professor of Arabic Studies at the Escuela de Estudios Árabes in Granada, Spain, states, “Though Granada, the last of the Muslim-ruled cities, fell in 1492.
Image caption: Palacio de Santa Cruz, Spanish Renaissance Example (Courtesy of LaGuiaGo, Wikimedia Commons)
Spanish Christians adopted many Arabic customs, including architectural design motifs and Arabic words modified for their Romance languages.” This style is apparent in the Royal Site of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, a monastery designed by Juan Bautista de Toledo, a 16th-century Spanish architect. Overall, the Spanish Renaissance style blended the buttresses from Gothic architecture with arches from Muslim designs to create a style known for decorative columns, red-tiled roofs, and massive archways, evident in TTUHSC.
The Spanish Renaissance architecture that Texas Tech used derives from a melting pot belief that Texas has incorporated, with the prevailing idea of inclusion reaching El Paso. According to Opus in Brick and Stone: The Architectural and Planning Heritage of Texas Tech University, by Brian H. Griggs and Richard L. Kagan, the Spanish Renaissance style underwent a Plateresque growth period years after Columbus voyaged to the Americas in 1492. Spain melded the vast amount of silver acquired from the New World into their architecture. With the arrival of the Spanish explorers in the Americas, a New Spain emerged, as Lynn V. Foster explains in “The Colony of New Spain,” an essay in The Brief History of Mexico, where maps show that El Paso and the rest of Texas were part of it. Over the centuries, the Spanish used the Spanish Renaissance style to build an estimated 12,000 churches and other colonial buildings in this New Spain. In the process, they incorporated the new Plateresque style that follows the line of Isabelline, decorative elements of Italianate origin combined with Iberian traditional elements to form ornamental complexes that overlay the Gothic structures.
The Plateresque style was more intricate than previous versions of Spanish architecture but received less attention. Foster clarifies that a more restrained Renaissance style, focused on functionality and space, has won out and lives in countless new designs. It is the current form of Spanish Renaissance architecture that Texas Tech University applied in bringing TTUHSC to life. While it may be the current form of Spanish Renaissance architecture, it can evolve as the university changes.
Billy Breedlove, the Vice Chancellor for Facilities Planning and Construction for the Texas Tech University System, expounds:
The 16th-century Plateresque Spanish Renaissance style inspired the architecture of the Texas Tech University System. At the same time Francisco Vázquez de Coronado arrived in the South Plains of West Texas, the Spanish Renaissance style our flagship institution adopted was popular in Spain. The area represents various cultures on TTU System campuses through architectural expressions. The TTU System has diligently upheld the Spanish Renaissance campus vernacular to preserve the past while building the future, contributing to the defining physical characteristics, providing value, pride, and spirit of our campuses. This belief helps preserve the past and propel this architecture into the future.
Texas Technological College, the university’s name in 1923, only an idea at this point, required people to gather all the necessary conditions to take it from idea to creation. Texas legislators met with William Ward Watkin, an architect from Boston, Massachusetts, who later founded the School of Architecture at Rice University. Watkin visited Spain in the early 1900s and brought a vision to design the campus buildings using the Spanish Renaissance style. He noticed that the City of Lubbock, where Texas Tech initiated, was visually comparable to Salamanca, a city in western Spain. Vice President for Marketing, Communication and Membership at Texas Tech Alumni Association, Kristina Butler of Texas Tech Today states, “The Spanish Renaissance style of architecture became the blueprint for almost every building on campus to represent the southwestern history of the region.” However, Texans were less interested in the Spanish Revival, then known as the Spanish Renaissance, to approve of a college built in this style. However, Watkin led the people he needed to sway to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to see buildings designed in the Spanish architectural style ahead of this. He took the board of directors of the Texas Technological College to see buildings designed in the Spanish architectural style. Brian H. Griggs notes that seeing the facilities in person was enough to convince the board of directors to approve of Watkin’s design.
Just as Spanish Renaissance architecture took many components to create, different entities had to come together to design and build TTUHSC. Texas Tech University first sought out not one but two architectural companies. In 2015, the university hired the Perkins & Will Architectural Firm to design the new TTUHSC in El Paso, Texas. Though Perkins & Will is a multi-national architectural firm, they required a local firm to be onsite to tackle issues that might arise, facilitating the design and building of TTUHSC. Perkins & Will collaborated with local architects from In*Situ Architects, founded in 2011 by William Helm and Edgar Lopez, who locally took the lead on the project. Building on Texas Tech’s vision of employing the Spanish Renaissance style, the two architectural companies developed the design for TTUHSC, upon the legacy that began long ago from an idea introduced by Watkin. Following the design of the two architectural companies, Sundt Construction Company & General Contractor became the third entity in the building of TTUHSC.
TTUHSC, located in central El Paso at 5001 El Paso Drive, is adjacent to University Medical Center (UMC) and UMC Children’s Hospital on Alameda, complementing the El Paso landscape with large open grassy spaces with a Franklin Mountain backdrop. While taller than the other buildings across the street, the Spanish Renaissance style melds nicely with the surrounding El Paso architecture.
El Paso is home to many buildings influenced not only by Spanish architecture but various styles worldwide, such as Art Deco, Gothic Revival, Modernist, and Postmodern. Because El Paso is a melting pot, much like Spain, the designs work well together. Furthermore, TTUHSC has the distinct advantage of being in a location where the buildings are in the United States but face south, toward the city of Juárez, México. This proximity allows international students to traverse quickly between the two countries.
Image caption: Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (Courtesy of Wallpaper Flare, Creative Commons)
Richard Lange, President of TTUHSC, affirms:
El Paso is a federally-designated Health Professional Shortage Area, and historically, our community and others in the Borderplex have been underserved. So, a four-year medical school and an entire health sciences center needed to be established in this region to provide access to worldclass patient care while educating the next generation of diverse healthcare leaders. To that end, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center El Paso was established ten years ago, and our location in the heart of the city, the 79905 ZIP Code, allows us to make strong connections with the local community, its Hispanic residents, and the region’s culture and history.
Lange further explains that TTUHSC is the only Title V Hispanic-Serving Institution in our region with a medical school instructing students and providing research and patient care. The community spirit fostered by the school helps connect it to our community and our community’s future, and it all happens in a campus rich in the Spanish Renaissance style, blending Gothic architecture with influences from Moorish and Spanish architects and the New World to create a timeless style that is the Texas Tech University Health Science Center.
