Descalzas Reales Monastery Reconstruction

This is a work I enjoyed a lot to do, a beautifull historical reconstruction of a spanish famous monastery and some episodes of its life for a tv show.

A quick and small background reference: El Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales, literally the Monastery of Barefoot Royals, resides in the former palace of Carlos I and Isabel of Portugal. Their daughter, Joan of Spain, founded this convent of Franciscan nuns in 1557. Throughout the remainder of the 16th century and into the 17th century, the convent attracted young noblewomen that were either disappointed by love or looking for love in Christ. Each woman brought with her a dowry. The riches quickly piled up, and the convent became one of the richest convents in all of Europe. Tomás Luis de Victoria, Spain's finest Renaissance composer, worked at the convent from 1587 to the end of his life in 1611. In 1862 part of the Monastery was burned down by fire and lost forever. Unfortunatelly, there are few files about how it could be, and references are only written and vague.

I teamed up with the staff at New Atlantis, and studied the few drawings and plans of the Monastery. As with time passed and the Monastery experienced several cosmetic changes, we decided to build it up "directly from the plans" and keeping the parchment look over the whole reconstructed building. The result was beautifull, with a pleasant soft artistic look.
You can find some other images at my website.