This enormous building, which today occupies the Superior Conservatory of Music and the Superior School of Dramatic Art, was originally a Carmelite convent founded in 1358 and known as Casa Grande del Carmen. In the 19th century it became a barracks and remained in that use until relatively recently. This makes its architecture complex and difficult to analyze, with two main construction moments: the 16th and 17th centuries, when it was configured as a convent, and the 19th century, when it was transformed into a barracks.
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The church remains of the old convent, rectangular in plan and with a dome over the presbytery, although it was also heavily modified in the 19th century. The tower, dating from the 17th century, has also been preserved, although it has no tops.
The main cloister is original, from the transition from the 16th to the 17th century, late-Renaissance or Mannerist style. It is porticoed on its lower floor, with semicircular arches that rest on pillars, decorated with Tuscan pilasters. On the upper floor, the molding of the large windows is finished off with a split pediment of clear Mannerist tradition.
The main façade constitutes the most important artistic contribution of the nineteenth-century reform. It has a marked neoclassical character, with a central doorway designed according to the prevailing academic models of the time, which determine the auction of the set by a classical entablature with its characteristic triangular pediment.
