Museo de la Arquitectura Ponceña facts for kids
Museo de la Arquitectura Ponceña
|
|
| Lua error in Module:Location_map at line 420: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value). | |
| Established | 1996 |
|---|---|
| Location | Calle Reina #106, NW corner of Calle Reina and Calle Mendez Vigo, Ponce, Puerto Rico |
| Type | Museum |
| Owner | State (ICP) |
The Museo de la Arquitectura Ponceña is a special museum in Ponce, Puerto Rico, that teaches you about architecture. It's located inside a beautiful old house called the Casa Wiechers-Villaronga. This museum helps us understand the history of building styles in Ponce and all of Puerto Rico.
The Institute of Puerto Rican Culture bought and fixed up the Casa Wiechers-Villaronga to create this museum. You can find it in the Ponce Historic Zone, which is a special area with many old buildings. The house itself is historic! It was designed and built in 1912 by a famous architect named Alfredo B. Wiechers.
Contents
History of the Museum House
The beautiful house that holds the museum was built in 1912. It was designed by architect Alfredo B. Wiechers to be his own home and office.
From 1911 to 1918, Wiechers designed many important buildings in Ponce. These included the Logia Aurora, Club Deportivo de Damas, the Teatro Habana, the Banco of Ponce building, and the Santo Asilo de Damas Hospital. In these buildings, he showed off the European Neo-Classical style he learned during his training in Europe.
In 1919, Mr. Wiechers felt he was being treated unfairly by the American government. So, he sold his house to Mr. Gabriel Villaronga and moved back to his home country, France. Many generations of the Villaronga family lived in the house throughout the 1900s.
In the early 1990s, the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture (ICP) bought the house. They carefully fixed it up to create the Museo de la Arquitectura Ponceña. In 1996, the museum officially opened. Its main goal was to show off Ponce's amazing history of architecture.
Where to Find the Museum
The museum building is shaped like a "U" and has one story. It is about 68 feet wide and 95 feet long. You can find it at the corner of Calle Reina and Calle Mendez Vigo.
It's just one block west of Plaza Las Delicias, which is the main square in the Ponce Historic Zone. Calle Reina is a street with several other historic houses, like Residencia Subirá and Casa Miguel C. Godreau.
The Museum's Amazing Architecture
The building that houses the museum is like a "treasure chest of culture." It's a beautiful example among the many old Ponce mansions that have been saved and turned into museums. The museum has fancy Neoclassical details and a grand gazebo on its roof. It also has a full set of original furniture made in the Catalan modernist style. Even the old shower and bathroom parts are still there and look great!
The building has lots of fancy decorations with European Baroque influences. But at its heart, the building's style is neo-classic. This mix creates a unique and elegant look. The museum sits on a stone base. Its main walls are made of brick, while some inside walls in the gallery and kitchen are made of wood. Wooden beams hold up a roof made of galvanized zinc.
The windows and doors are made of wood. They have movable louvers (slats) and colorful glass pieces. The floors throughout the house are different. You'll see native cement tiles in the dining area and entrance hall. The living room and bedrooms have wooden floors. The bathroom has ceramic tiles, and the entryway has marble tiles.
The Baroque style shows up in the museum's rounded corners. These corners are common in old Ponce homes. The corner has two stone pilasters (flat columns) and is divided into three sections by two more flat columns. Each section has a wooden window with glass at the top and a flower design above it. The rest of the wall has flower garlands. The corner also has a round sitting area called a "glorieta" with Ionic columns.
Another cool part of the house is its balconies. They are divided into three parts with Ionic columns. They are framed with Baroque moldings and carved faces above the openings. The iron railings on the balconies are designed in the Art Nouveau style. The outside walls are topped with a continuous stone cornice (a decorative ledge). Above this cornice, a battlement-style parapet (a low wall) with carved lion faces and "candelabra" designs decorates the roofline.
Some of the most amazing architectural features in this museum are the detailed pilasters, the stone base, the cornices, the "candelabra" designs, and the Ionic column tops. These all show the Neo-Classical style of that time. The Villaronga Residence is a great example of this style. It is one of only two houses still standing that were designed by Wiechers. This makes it very important to Ponce's architectural and cultural history. It's also special because all the furniture, even the bathroom items, are original. Most of the furniture is in the Modernisme style (a type of Art Nouveau from Catalonia) and was brought from Barcelona, Spain. The hanging tapestries were painted by Librado Net, a famous local artist.
The main entrance is on Reina Street, not in the center of the building. The entrance hall has carved tiles, and the door is at the end of a marble staircase. The inside of the house is well-kept and hasn't been changed much. The rooms are painted in different colors, and the walls have decorative Art-Nouveau friezes (decorative bands). Most ceilings have decorative embossed tin with a continuous molding in the corners. The gallery and part of the kitchen walls are wooden. They have fixed wooden louvered windows that help with air flow and light.
Other interesting details in the house include:
- The bathroom parts, like the shower stall and ceramic wall tiles, which came from Barcelona, Spain.
- The light fixtures in the dining room, master bedroom, and living room, which also came from Spain.
- A "medio punto" (a half-arch opening) in the dining area, which is typical of architecture in this part of Puerto Rico.
Museum Displays
The museum has many displays and photos of amazing works by the most famous architects of early 20th-century Ponce. These include Blas Silva Boucher, Francisco Porrata Doria, and Alfredo Wiechers Pieretti. The city of Ponce is known for keeping its unique Puerto Rican criollismo culture alive. Because of this, Ponce was chosen to be part of the special Art Nouveau Route of the European Union. This shows that Ponce is recognized for its "world preservation of modernist heritage."
See also
In Spanish: Museo de la Arquitectura Ponceña para niños
- Casa Wiechers-Villaronga
- Ponce Creole
