The wooden balconies
Three tiers hung over the void on beams.
Fernando — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Fedoce1 (Fernando Domínguez Cerejido) — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Fedoce1 (Fernando Domínguez Cerejido) — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Fedoce1 (Fernando Domínguez Cerejido) — CC BY-SA 4.0
**Houses with wooden balconies projecting over a sheer cliff dropping into the Huécar gorge** — and the image of Cuenca you know. ⚠ **There were once many**: **a whole row of hanging houses along the cliff edge** in the Middle Ages — ✅ **and only three remain**, **restored in the 20th century**. ⚠ **The projecting wooden balconies are the distinguishing feature**: **three tiers hung over the void**, **carried on timber beams driven into the rock**. ✅ **Two of them today house the *Museo de Arte Abstracto Español*** — ⚠ **an entirely unexpected combination**: **20th-century art inside a medieval house hanging off a cliff**. ✅ **And the best view of them is not from them but from the San Pablo footbridge** opposite.
Three tiers hung over the void on beams.
A suspended footbridge giving the full view.
20th-century art inside a hanging medieval house.
Calle Canonigos, 16001 Cuenca, Spain
**They are built on the rock, not hung in the air — only the balconies project, and they have been engineered in restoration.** ✅ **The real structure**: ⚠ **the name misleads slightly**: **the body of the house is built on the rock at the cliff edge** — **its foundations on solid stone**; ✅ **what «hangs» is the **projecting wooden balconies** over the void. ✅ **How the balconies are carried**: **by long timber beams running from inside the building outwards** — **part of each inside the house, pinned under the weight of walls and floors**, **and part projecting to carry the balcony**; ⚠ **so the building's own weight is the counterbalance** (the cantilever principle). **An old, simple and effective system.** ⚠ **Why only three remain**: **timber exposed to rain and sun rots and needs constant renewal** — ✅ **and maintenance is the condition of survival**; **houses that were neglected lost their balconies and were then cleared**. ✅ **The three survivors were thoroughly restored in the 20th century** (particularly in the 1930s and 1960s) **with new beams and structural strengthening** — ⚠ **so what you see is authentic in form and largely modern in fabric**. ✅ **They are safe, open to the public and monitored.**
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