elements to bear in mind about ponce architecture

8/2/2019 Elements to Bear in Mind about Ponce Architecture

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Elements to bear in mind on Ponce architecture

Jorge Ortiz Colom, Instituto de Cultura Puertorriquea, Ponce office / November 2007

PONCES BUILT FORM city and buildings - reflect multiculturalism and an open, progressive view of

the world. This is particularly important in the mixture of vernacular and cultivated forms and details and

the blending of local and imported materials. Ponce was Puerto Ricos commercial center for the

important export industry of semi-processed agricultural products: dry coffee beans (shipped raw or

roasted) and brown or muscovado sugar.

It is climatically appropriate, with a use of low-

temperature-burned brick masonry and wood, both

native mostly in structure and imported in sheathing.

The use of balconies and enclosed galleries, high

ceilings with an airspace between it and the (generally

tin) roofs and the design of doors and windows are allspecific responses to a hot, semidry climate at a time of

lack of easily tappable energy sources.

Representative buildings and types

Ponce architecture is characterized by elements like:

Vernacular predominance between 1825approx. to 1900, using mostly local wood, mampostera or brick, generally rectangular or L-

shapes, high hip or side gable roofs (the latter with distinct ventilating grilles in wood slats). This

style continued as a subordinate tendency up to ca. 1920. Usually the interior is 3 rooms wide

with a central living space flanked by bedrooms, or 2 wide with one side for public space and the

other one for bedrooms. Some of these are absorbed great houses of estates that were cultivatedhard up against the town.

Cultured tradition by several known architects and engineers, in many cases designing upon the vernacular interior schemes. Neoclassical was the prevalent language and its exuberance is

evident for example in Manuel Domnechs Carlos Armstrong House (1899). Some designers likeengineer Blas Silva and architect Alfredo Wiechers however develop alternate plan distributions.

Wiechers was greatly influenced by Catalan modernisme (many wealthy residents of the city were in

fact of Catalan origin), and other architects also used modernista-inspired detailing specially infaades, balconies and mediopuntos (ornamental interior screens subdividing the main living space).

This type of building prevailed between 1880 and 1920 in the more central locations.

Pattern-book plans using American models and inspiration in bungalows and Anglo-Americanarts and crafts details. Usually built in imported wood and concrete. Some are visible in

residential sectors of downtown and others in sections like the Mariani residential subdivision(inner suburb) southwest of downtown. This was prevalent between 1920-1950.

Art Deco and Art Moderne in many areas used in all genera of building. Simultaneous use ofSpanish Revival mostly for residential. (1930-1960)

Monumental traditions, mostly neoclassical, for the significant buildings in town. As Ponce grew,many stylistic traditions were tried. There is no stylistic uniformity in Ponce comparable with that

of San Juan and its overriding colonial-neoclassical theme.

Vernacular gingerbread house in thenorthern part of the city center


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Spatial traits:

Though the houses define street walls with

great effect, they are in fact detached and

party walls between interior spaces are rare

unlike the case of Old San Juan. The most

common spatial distribution in olderCreole houses (up to 1920) is access from

the street by a wide faade-length veranda

to a central living room. This center-hallorganization, probably derived from

vernacular European origins was modified

for the tropics. This hall became a largeliving space, often two with a more private

and familiar one on the back (known

usually as the antesala or anteroom because

it used to be the access in 2-story

houses once the horizontal throw ofthe stairs was factored in). These

living rooms were separated first by a

wall and later on by a sometimes

exuberant wooden partition known as

a mediopunto (halfway point), made

with different details of lathed,

molded, or jig sawed pieces,sometimes also hiding cupboards and

other storage. Flanking on one or

both sides, enfilade, the bedrooms,

normally interconnected among

themselves for more privacy. Thesehad no built-in closets: clothing was

stored in so-called roperos, i.e. cabinets

with perches for hanging clothes

inside. Ceilings were very high to allow hot air to move up outside the comfort zone of occupants.

Narrower houses will be two rooms wide with one side dedicated to bedrooms and the other to public

living spaces. Two-room width houses are arranged on the lot to attempt to orient the bedrooms to the

east. This reduces solar gain on them so theyre fresher in the evenings and also helps by using the early

sunlight as a means to wake up the residents. There were several twin (duplex) houses too.

Most of these houses will have an utilitarian extension to the back known as a martillo or hammer, where

in many cases the kitchen, pantry, servants quarters, laundry and other working spaces of the house are

located, conveniently placed next to the rear yard. Rear yards in houses are in most cases utilitarian, and

they normally house herb gardens, fruit trees, clotheslines and implements. Few are conceived as

ornamental and decorative though some have been converted to the latter functions after renovations.

Later houses have a decisive influence of Anglo-American pattern books and bungalow forms possibly

brought from the Lesser Antilles. They may be either asymmetrical or rectangular in plan. Many willhave center aisles with rooms on either side; these aisles would connect the living space with dining and

Mediopunto type partition in former beach house (ca.1915) moved to the La Alhambra inner suburb later

Criollo house in brick and wood-metal roof behind parapet:the two center doors on balcony open to the living space


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kitchen oriented to the back of the house. These houses of the

1890-1940 period would coexist with architect-designedmodels, though even the latter would respect in many cases

vernacular floor plan organization and others like many by

Alfredo Wiechers and some houses by Blas Silva wouldorganize the spaces around a longitudinal circulation space

running through the rear of the house.

The presence of substantial verandas (balcones ) is a common

denominator of Ponces domestic landscape making it present

in the city. Essential to the balcn's success is its relation and

transition to inside space. The balcn on criollo houses is above

all a living space, occupable for extended periods. Its regular

and rhythmic composition reinforced the symmetry of

traditional center-hall houses, and on one-story versions, it

was part of a spatial sequence from the public to the intimate,

culminating in the sala or main living room. On upper stories,

balcones were widened - they were no longer mere lookouts like

the Mediterranean-style galleries that exist in Old San Juan,but usable platforms where life could go on with a view to the

world beneath. In Ponce, these works of architectural art were

built with molded/lathed hardwood, cast iron (sometimes imported) or brick or concrete pillars, with ashed roof covering. Trim could be cast iron, molded or jig sawed wood; often fancily decorative.

In any case, the separation between verandas and interiors was effected with double doors with operableshutter panels, which could be placed in several positions to control visibility and ventilation, substituting

the more elementary plank doors used beforehand. Operable shutters were incorporated inside the

panels, and the postigo (a small hinged panel covering the shutters) retained to access them. Doors werealmost always set in pairs and small panes of glass for lighting, or additional holes for ventilation, or both,

were incorporated. In many cases, they now ornamented facades. Transoms on top of these doors took on

decorative qualities - there were versions inoperable glass, wood slats, and fancy

jigsawed fretwork. Galleries to the side and

rear patios were also ample, and a particular

characteristic of the ones in Ponce is the

presence of fixed wooden louvers to control

the regions intense sunlight. (In many other

towns even in the South these galleries to the

back were open.)

The public/private transition expressed by

verandas (balcones), with its clear outside

wall articulation, would survive theintroduction of reinforced concrete,

standardized North American softwood andeven the importation of new architectural

styles like Art Deco/Moderne and Spanish

Revival between 1925 and 1950. Concretesolutions timidly realized the new forms of plastic expression that this material could render. In most early

cases, brick was retranslated into the new material: adding new details such as decorative glass mosaic

Gallery with fixed wood louvers inmartillo (ell) extension of house

Balcony details with operable transom, slats ondouble doors and shiplap facing of front walls


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inlays or the use of more abstract geometries, or decorative Spanish tiles. After 1910, the main access door

to the living room was frequently encased in a surround of geometrical wood-and-frosted-glass designs,following presumably new domestic designs derived from American pattern books. Cottages with hip or

gable or complex roofs broke the staid symmetry of precedent center-living-room schemes. Prefabricated

ornamental concrete balusters and railings were used not only on these new houses, and also were refittedon more traditional designs.

There is also a proletarian vernacular

seen in small imported-pine wooden

houses (1900 onwards) with balconies

facing the street and a rectangular

plan. Common in the western,

northern and southeastern edges of the

city, their front- or side-gable roofs and

columned concrete balconies

sometimes give these the appearance of

small temples, which raised from the

sidewalk and multiplied along the

street fronts create a particular andunique landscape of elegant

transparency.

To get privacy virtually all houses are

lifted at least 1 m (3 ft) from the street,

so both privacy and street borne dust were

controlled. Besides the rest of the house

was lifted from the ground to improve

ventilation and avoid vermin. This was

done with hardwood or brick-pillar stilts,or with brick or rubble walls. At the front

faade, this elevation was sealed off by a

wall, almost always of hard material and

sometimes decorated with moldings and

ventilation holes. In some situations, these

bases acquired considerable height and

could become veritable basements. Many

of the smaller, rectangular houses were jacked up to create a new ground floor

beneath that could be used for commerce,

accessory apartments, or storage of

vehicles. House moving, according tomany chronicles and oral histories, was

also quite common.

Ponce also had commercial buildings of

wood, brick or (later) concrete frame, the latter two types made similar to the ordered, austerely detailed

structures in San Juan, with regularly spaced double doors of solid wood planks or metal plate, but the

proportions, detailing and roofs were different. Many had geometric or neoclassical details sometimes

with some flair, and roofs were frequently of wood frame. On the upper portions of the wall, the use of

Mixture of residential and commercial buildings on CristinaStreet showing the diversity of Ponces urban building. Notehow the large verandas consolidate a peculiar streetscape.

This part of Molina Street is a row of pine-wood houses forworkers and artisans fringed with verandas and raised onconcrete bases, defining a very special urban form.


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oculi for ventilation even when closed, often detailed with moldings and decoration, helped move stale air

out of the storage space. Imported cast-iron internal columns were used in some of the larger buildings,but more common were arched interior structural walls or hardwood frames jointed with complex

mortises and pegs. Mixed buildings are quite common on several sections of the city: a Creole house

riding on top of a commercial space. Access stairs to the houses were mostly to the side, some covered andothers open in roughly equal proportions.

Many buildings in central Ponce were hotels, a major building use seen in late 19 th century Puerto Rican

towns. Since any intercity trip could be an all-day ordeal on rutty roads or sailing along the shore, visitors,

even casual, stayed at these hostelries, some purpose-built with individual rooms, others converted

residences. Basic, cheap rooming with no

extra amenities was the offer. These small

hotels withered away after the 1950s and

the improvement of land transport. Only

a few like the (extensively rebuilt) Meli

and the Blgica remain, this time around

catering to tourists from outside Puerto

Rico or locals that want a short change of

venue.

Ponce has its share of landmarks and

open spaces: the three-nave, vaulted,twin-towered Cathedral was begun in the

1830s and the present neoclassical faade

dates from a refurbishment by FranciscoPorrata-Doria in 1930. The City Hall, in

austere colonial-neoclassical form, originally was begun in the mid-19 th century and like many others of its

type; it had a jail on the ground floor. Near the river there is an 1849 Infantry Barracks, a massive 2-storycourtyard building that later on was the citys second jail. Northward from the plaza stand the

Marketplace with a Finnish-made iron structure

in the inside and nowadays surrounded with a brickgallery, originally in neoclassical style, later

rendered in 1937 with the present Art Deco idiom

by architect Pedro Mndez and the institutionally

neoclassic Tricoche Hospital (1880s). The La Perla

Theater was originally built in 1864 as an elegant

venue with a Corinthian-porticoed faade and a

horseshoe configuration: it was wrecked in the

October 1918 earthquake. The present building,

with the recycled column capitals, dates from 1941

and was also designed by Porrata-Doria.

The Cathedral splits the main plaza in two; thenorthern side known as Las Delicias The

Delights was a rectangular fenced esplanade,used for social promenades, courting eligible young ladies, and meeting friends; the southern side was less

defined and used for military drills and civic exercises. In 1882 a major fair and exposition was held inside

the square: behind the Cathedral a wooden exhibition pavilion, a Moorish fancy in red and black (thecitys colors) was designed by military engineer Mximo Meana; and an Arab Kiosk in iron was

installed in the southern plaza. The following year, the wooden pavilion was converted into a firehouse

Hotel on Marina Street, one of many built for housingitinerant travelers when transport was difficult.

Art Deco theater possibly by Pedro Mndez on Victoria Street.


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and used by Ponces volunteer firemen for decades. It still stands as a major attraction to the city it is a

museum about Ponces fire brigades - and a distinct symbol of its identity.

Firemen in Ponce are an indelible part of city lore: on January 25, 1899, several of them, disobeying

orders not to go there, entered an American gunpowder warehouse which was burning and stamped outthe flames in time to avoid much of the city blowing up! Though firstly punished, the sanctions were later

lifted and the brave firemen honored. Asmall obelisk on the southern square

remembers the saga. (And there is a

group of vernacular houses painted in

the city colors west of downtown,

assigned to retired firemen. This area

known as 25 de Enero has been

primorously restored.) Alas, the Arab

Kiosk was pulled down in the 1930s and

substituted with the Fountain of the

Lions, honoring the citys symbolic

animal. A replica was built in 1993

further to the south in the site of theDamas Hospital, a 19th century building

inconsiderately razed in 1975.

To the south on the beginning of busy

Hostos Avenue stands the Holy Trinity Episcopal (Anglican) Church, authorized in 1873 and for many

years the only non-Roman Catholic temple under the Spanish flag. The original structure (1874) was aprefabricated iron building supposedly donated by Queen Victoria of England. It was replaced in 1926 by

the present Mission-revival building. After American occupation, and freedom of worship, a slew of

Protestant churches were erected. Antonin Nechodomas two Methodist temples in a Mission-Gothicmixture show impressive wood roofs and compo stone (site-formed concrete stone ashlars) walls.

Other landmarks were built following American occupation: Francisco Porrata-Dorias two banks on themain square (1924), with Egyptian colossal orders and a neo-Mannerist attitude to faade composition;

the Roman-temple-inspired Aurora No. 7 Masonic Lodge (1916) on a design by Alfredo Wiechers;

several 1930s abandoned theaters in the Art Deco form by Pedro Mendez and others; and the schools.

Though a school building had been built in Vives Street in 1894, only after 1900 would these educational

structures become a significant part of the landscape. Possibly the most magnificent is Adrian Finlaysons

Ponce High School of 1918, with an impressive monumental portico of Doric columns. It boasts its own

theater and it has been rehabilitated in quite acceptable form. Smaller Neoclassical and Mission style

schools dot the town but most are not as well kept.

The city form

The historic area is all built up as a grid with extensions up to 1960. Expansion began in earnest around

1860 when the blocks north of the plaza, where the marketplace was sited, were built up by expansion

plans devised by Felix Vidal dOrs, which was of Catalan origin. By the late 19 th century the city again

expanded several blocks west and northwestward, engulfing the original cemetery located six blocks

northwest of the plaza. The cemetery was moved over a kilometer westward, opening the former Molina

estate (whose house still stands on the corner of the Simon de la Torre Street with Reina Street).

Additional expansions occurred in this manner up to the eve of the Second World War with the Mariani

district which meshes with the older parts of town and La Alhambra, a collection of Spanish Revival, Art

Las Delicias square in its heyday as a promenade: theband used to play in the middle while gentlemen and ladieslooped around in opposite directions.


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Deco and Art Moderne houses across the river. The

frequent use of chamfered corners, mandated since the1880s, is noteworthy within the historic district. This

improved traffic flow and visibility at corners but also gave

emphasis to the intersection as a locus of social interchangeas usually chamfers were the main entrances to houses and

above all commercial buildings located there.

The harborside settlement known as the Playa was built as

an outlet for import-export trade. The city proper was safely

ensconced inland, out of foreign navies easy reach. It has

two main sectors: the warehouses large, rectangular and

high-ceilinged - made mostly in brick dating from 1845-

1900 and the vernacular houses of the dock workers. The

warehouses have mampostera and brick exteriors with

large, double doors of wood plank often covered with iron

sheeting; and usually open interiors punctuated by wood,

iron, brick or concrete columns. There is a neoclassical

customhouse, still used for this purpose; and adjacent to itthe brick footings of a large open pavilion used as a

temporary deposit for recently disembarked products where

they were revised by customs agents. Many warehousesopened towards the sandy, irregular seashore punctuated by

short wooden docks where small boats and tenders would

transfer cargo and passengers to the ships that had to waitoffshore because the harbor was undredged.

Offshore on two islands the harbor had

two lighthouses: one at the flat Cardona

islet that directed ships in the inner

harbor; and another (visible from the

coast) at Caja de Muertos (Coffin)Island, an impressive limestone

outcropping in the Caribbean waters,which was indispensable to guide coastal

steamers and sailing vessels around the

southern coasts treacherous reefs and

banks. These lighthouses were square buildings made in brick and mampostera with tall brick towers

accessible from the inside of the keepers residence, thus protected from the foul weather of the hurricane

season. The French-made brass housings for the Fresnel-lens lamps have been lost or severely vandalized,

though. (There is a lamp in relatively good shape at the Maunabo lighthouse, on the mainland 60 miles to

the east; the lens and tower are, however, still off-limits to visitors as of this writing.)

Interior of a warehouse in the Playa harborside settlementwith a braced hardwood internal structure. This particularexample is now an artists atelier.

1898 map of the urban area showingthe center, the Playa and the canefields between them.


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Between harbor and town two miles inland, the road now known as Hostos Avenue was a heavily

trafficked umbilical cord, traversed by a horse (later electric) trolley and which passed through a brieflandscape of cane fields and estates which presented the importance of sugarcane to the citys prosperity.

Lastly the hill behind the citys center, named El Viga (The Sentry) was barely populated with some

shanties on the lower reaches and further on top, a wooden mast with a cross brace that permittedstringing flags of the nations of visiting ships. A sentry would scan the harbor from there with glasses and

raise the appropriate flags: though mostly Spanish and American, there were British, French, Dutch,Hanseatic (pre-Bismarckian Germany) and South American, too. After 1920 the Viga hill would feature

an access road from downtown and large houses in Bungalow and Spanish Revival styles would grace the

mountain as a privileged habitat for the upper crust. Shortly after 1960 the International Style Ponce

Inter-Continental Hotel would be the first luxurious modern hostelry in town.

Other places to see with enough time

on historic Ponce include the remains

of the first urban aqueduct built in

Puerto Rico ca. 1880 (nearly two

decades before San Juans), the Old

Adjuntas road, graced with many early

20th century bungalow-style summerhouses, and which runs past the

restored Buena Vista Hacienda coffee

estate (itself worth its own trip); severalrectangular brick road keeper houses;

remains of coffee and sugar estates,

some of them neglected and wistfulruins; traces of the cultural landscape of

sugarcane (rail track rights-of-way, the

Mercedita sugarmill complex, dryirrigation channels some as majestic as

Roman aqueducts) and that of coffee.

Many important Pre-Columbian sites have been uncovered in the last 30 years in Ponces immediate

vicinity. One of them, the Tibes Ceremonial Center, a complex of stone-flanked ceremonial courts for the

ritual ballgame ofbatey - barely 5 kilometers north of town and dated from 500 AD onwards - is a historic

park. It was discovered by accident after a severe flood in 1980. Ponce boasts the oldest site in Puerto

Rico, Maruca (ca. 3000 BC) now covered after mitigation with a standard-issue shopping mall; while the

recently reevaluated PO29 (Jcana) site on the foothills to the north seems to be the first ever that reunites

all the places and accoutrements, ritual and quotidian, of Pre-Columbian life. (PO29 is a bone of

contention between government regulatory agencies and currently is not open to visitors.)

To sum up, Ponce offers many diverse historical surprises: a true cross section of Puerto Rican society as a

complex mix of cultures and traditions that await further research to interpret the book of its rich

heritage. Ponces material culture represents the Caribbean as a cultural crossroads of the world.

jo / Revised Oct. 31, 2007 by Jorge Ortiz Colom (author)

About 7 kilometers northeast of the center, this archedbridge takes a 19th-century abandoned irrigation channelover a creek. Remains of the cultural landscape ofagriculture are to be found abundantly near Ponce.

elements to bear in mind about ponce architecture

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