Casa Salazar-Candal () is a historic building located on the southeast corner of Isabel and Mayor Cantera streets in

Ponce, Puerto Rico Ponce ( , , ) is a city and a Municipalities of Puerto Rico, municipality on the southern coast of Puerto Rico. The most populated city outside the San Juan, Puerto Rico, San Juan metropolitan area, Ponce was founded on August 12, 1692Some publ ...

, in the city's

historic district A historic district or heritage district is a section of a city which contains historic building, older buildings considered valuable for historical or architectural reasons. In some countries or jurisdictions, historic districts receive legal p ...

. The building dates from 1911. It was designed by the architect Blas Silva. The architecture consists of 19th

Classical revival Neoclassicism, also spelled Neo-classicism, emerged as a Western cultural movement in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that drew inspiration from the art and culture of classical antiquity. Neoclassic ...

Art Nouveau Art Nouveau ( ; ; ), Jugendstil and Sezessionstil in German, is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. It was often inspired by natural forms such as the sinuous curves of plants and ...

and

Spanish Revival The Spanish Colonial Revival architecture (), often known simply as Spanish Revival, is a term used to encompass a number of Revivalism (architecture), revivalist architectural styles based in both Spanish colonial architecture and Spanish archi ...

architectural styles. Today the Salazar–Candal Residence houses the Museum of the History of Ponce.

History

Casa Salazar was designed in 1911 by Blas Silva Boucher as the residence of Dr. Guillermo Salazar Palau and his wife Sara Isabel Rivera Carbonell. The house was a Guillermo Salazar Palua's wedding gift to his wife Sara Isabel. Later, it became the headquarters of the '' Alianza Nacionalista de Ponce'' (Ponce Nationalist Alliance) and later on yet, the headquarters for the ''Liga Progresista de Ponce'' (Ponce Progressive League), an organization seeking to preserve and advance the social, cultural, and commercial interest of the city during the first half of the twentieth century.''Una joya incomparable de Ponce:La historia de la Ciudad Señorial, desde sus orígenes mismos en 1692, está contenida en el Museo de la Historia de Ponce.''
El Nuevo Dia. Guaynabo, Puerto Rico. 1 February 2009. Retrieved 8 July 2012.

Significance

Casa Salazar-Candal is one of a group of stylistically eclectic houses built in Ponce between 1900 and 1915. Designed by architect Blas C. Silva Bouscher in 1911, the building reflects an emerging tendency to incorporate freely diverse and competing architectural motifs. The facade is distinctly rendered in

Roccoco Rococo, less commonly Roccoco ( , ; or ), also known as Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and dramatic style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpte ...

and

moorish The term Moor is an exonym used in European languages to designate the Muslim populations of North Africa (the Maghreb) and the Iberian Peninsula (particularly al-Andalus) during the Middle Ages. Moors are not a single, distinct or self-defi ...

detailing to emphasize its bifunctional character as a home and an office respectively. The portion of the structure designed to shelter the family is refined, delicately ornamented and asymmetrical. It utilizes a balcony, raised and detached from the street as a transitional zone between the public and the private sphere.Mariano G. Coronas Castro, Certifying Official; Felix Julian del Campo, State Historian; and Roberto Sackett, State Architectural Historian, Puerto Rico Historic Preservation Office. (San Juan, Puerto Rico) April 11, 1988. In ''National Register of Historic Places Inventory – Nomination Form''. United States Department of the Interior. National Park Service. (Washington, D.C.) Page 3. Listing Reference Number 88000663: Salazar-Candal House. June 9, 1988. In contrast to the refinement and gentility of the house expressed by its fluted corinthian columns, floral surrounds and composite entablure, the office is fashioned as a moorish garrison exhibiting a crenelated

parapet A parapet is a barrier that is an upward extension of a wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/brea ...

, horseshoe arches with simplified surrounds and planar surfaces. The building plane of the office is pushed forward to meet the sidewalk for public access in order to further express its utilitarian function. Master craftsman Elias Concepcion has been credited with the execution of the interior finishes. His handling of the

ornamental Ornamental may refer to: *Ornamental grass, a type of grass grown as a decoration *Ornamental iron, mild steel that has been formed into decorative shapes, similar to wrought iron work *Ornamental plant, a plant that is grown for its ornamental qua ...

elements ranges from the curvilinear and stylized floral motifs present in the stained glass of the double doors, to the rectilinear wood screen—reminiscent of the

Arts and Crafts movement The Arts and Crafts movement was an international trend in the decorative and fine arts that developed earliest and most fully in the British Isles and subsequently spread across the British Empire and to the rest of Europe and America. Initiat ...

– dividing the

foyer A lobby is a room in a building used for entry from the outside. Sometimes referred to as a foyer, entryway, reception area or entrance hall, it is often a large room or complex of rooms (in a theatre, opera house, concert hall, showroom, cine ...

from the living room. As with the exterior, the interior is a mixture of distinct stylistic elements. The vestibule's repousse sheet metal ornamentation reflects the roccoco treatment of the exterior, at once maintaining an image of opulence and refinement for the visitor while creating a transitional device for the predominantly planar interior surfaces. Many highstyle interiors of the beginning of the 20th century in the Ponce and Yauco region have been attributed to Elias Concepcion due to his sophisticated integration and subtle resolution of an eclectic vocabulary.

Physical appearance and description

The house is located on a plot of land measuring 31 meters (on Isabel Street), by 13 meters (on Mayor Street), to the South 45 meters and to the East 22 meters. It was built in 1911 in reinforced concrete, brick and stone, and its roof was partly built in concrete and partly in timber with corrugated iron sheets.Mariano G. Coronas Castro, Certifying Official; Felix Julian del Campo, State Historian; and Roberto Sackett, State Architectural Historian, Puerto Rico Historic Preservation Office. (San Juan, Puerto Rico) April 11, 1988. In ''National Register of Historic Places Inventory – Nomination Form''. United States Department of the Interior. National Park Service. (Washington, D.C.) Page 2. Listing Reference Number 88000663: Salazar-Candal House. June 9, 1988. The house is L-shaped in plan and consists of a main body where the public spaces and bedrooms are located. An extension, known commonly as the "martillo", completes the "L" shape and is where the kitchen and service quarters are located. The facade employs classical elements mixed with moorish influenced details It is divided in three main sections; an ample

balcony A balcony (from , "scaffold") is a platform projecting from the wall of a building, supported by columns or console brackets, and enclosed with a balustrade, usually above the ground floor. They are commonly found on multi-level houses, apartme ...

that corresponds to the family dwelling flanked by two enclosed spaces used formerly as the medical offices of the original owners. Access to this commercial space is directly from the street. The main doors are of a particular design in using the lobulated arch as a motif. These doors have stained glass panels in the

style. The residence balcony is raised over a rusticated-stone plinth. It is divided into four bays by the use of five paired and fluted

corinthian column The Corinthian order (, ''Korinthiakós rythmós''; ) is the last developed and most ornate of the three principal classical orders of Ancient Greek architecture and Roman architecture. The other two are the Doric order, which was the earliest, ...

s. An Italian-influenced

balustrade A baluster () is an upright support, often a vertical moulded shaft, square, or lathe-turned form found in stairways, parapets, and other architectural features. In furniture construction it is known as a spindle. Common materials used in its ...

serves as the balcony railing. A cornice, neoclassical in style, runs the whole of the house's facade as well as the crenelated parapet over the office space. The staircase leading to the 'piano nobile' of the house is enhanced and accentuated in the parapet by an elaborated 'cartouche' indicating the date of construction of the house. From the street, through the staircase and the main entrance, a foyer leads to an interior courtyard from which all the spaces of the house are distributed. Special features of the interior are the stained glass panels in the living room, showing a strong moorish influence in its form (lobulated arches) and its colour. The doors have louvered panels and stained glass insets. The living room, the studio and the bedrooms have pressed

tin Tin is a chemical element; it has symbol Sn () and atomic number 50. A silvery-colored metal, tin is soft enough to be cut with little force, and a bar of tin can be bent by hand with little effort. When bent, a bar of tin makes a sound, the ...

ceilings.

References

External links

* {{NRHP in Ponce, Puerto Rico Houses completed in 1911 National Register of Historic Places in Ponce, Puerto Rico Ponce Creole architecture 1911 establishments in Puerto Rico Art Nouveau houses Salazar-Candal Art Nouveau architecture in Puerto Rico Historic house museums in Puerto Rico

History

Significance

Physical appearance and description

See also

References

Further reading

External links