Casa Ordeig, Valencia
A corner house on the market square where Modernisme borrows the Gothic lace of the silk exchange opposite.
At a glance
Casa Ordeig stands at the corner of the Calle Ramilletes and the Plaça del Mercat, in the busiest part of old Valencia, between the central market and the Gothic silk exchange. The Valencian architect Francisco Mora Berenguer built it in 1907 as a private residence for Francisco Ordeig. It is a work of Valencian Modernisme, but one that looks across the square for its ornament, borrowing the late-Gothic vocabulary of the neighbouring Llotja de la Seda.
Key facts
- Location: Calle Ramilletes 1, corner of the Plaça del Mercat, Valencia
- Architect: Francisco Mora Berenguer
- Built: 1907
- Style: Valencian Modernisme with neo-Gothic detail
- Today: a residential building; viewable from the square
History
By the early twentieth century the Plaça del Mercat was being rebuilt as the modern commercial heart of Valencia, and the great central market was about to rise on it. On the corner of the square, in 1907, Francisco Mora Berenguer built a house for Francisco Ordeig, a private residence on one of the city’s most prominent sites.
Mora was one of the leading Valencian architects of the Modernista years, and here he chose to answer the setting rather than ignore it. With the Llotja de la Seda, the Gothic silk exchange, directly opposite, he dressed the new house in a neo-Gothic decorative repertoire that echoes its famous neighbour, a piece of Modernista architecture quoting the late Middle Ages.
The house has remained a residential building, and because it stands on the open square it is easily seen, a quieter companion to the spectacular market that went up beside it in the following decades.
What you see
The building rises a ground floor, a mezzanine and four storeys, turning the corner of the square with bays of windows framed in worked stone. The decoration is the surprise: pinnacles, tracery and Gothic motifs taken from the silk exchange across the way, handled with a Modernista love of craft.
It is a small lesson in how Valencian Modernisme worked, free to borrow from any source, including the city’s own Gothic past, and to weave it into something new. Seen from the market square, Casa Ordeig and the Llotja face each other across five centuries.
Practical information
- Open: no; private residence, viewable from the square
- Cost: free to view the exterior
- Best for: the neo-Gothic detail echoing the silk exchange opposite
- Time needed: 10 minutes
Getting there
Casa Ordeig is on the Plaça del Mercat in central Valencia, beside the Mercado Central and the Llotja de la Seda, a short walk from the cathedral.
Nearby
- Mercado Central de Valencia — the great Modernista market on the same square
- Llotja de la Seda — the Gothic silk exchange opposite, a UNESCO site
- Iglesia de los Santos Juanes — the baroque church on the square
Sources
- Ajuntament de València (valencia.es) — Casa Ordeig
- Inventory of Valencian heritage — Casa Ordeig
- Wikimedia Commons — image source and licence
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