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Juan de Villanueva
Juan de Villanueva | |
|---|---|
 Portrait of Juan de Villanueva (c.1805), by Francisco de Goya. (Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando). | |
| Born | September 15, 1739 |
| Died | August 22, 1811 (aged 71) |
Resting place | Church of San Sebastián |
| Occupation | Architecture |
Juan Antonio de Villanueva y de Montes (Madrid, September 15, 1739 – Madrid, August 22, 1811) was a Spanish architect, the foremost exponent of neoclassical architecture in Spain.[1]
Villanueva was one of the most influential architects of his time, holding the post of Chief Architect to the King (1786–1811) during the reigns of Charles IV and Ferdinand VII. His work, characterized by sobriety, purism and functionality, reflected the ideals of the Enlightenment and earned him recognition as a central figure in the urban transformation of Madrid. He was closely linked to the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, where he trained and later served as Director of Architecture.[2]
Life
Juan Antonio was the first son of the sculptor Juan de Villanueva y Barbales; his mother was Ángela de Montes González, and his half-brother was the architect Diego de Villanueva (1713–1774), who was also his teacher and protector during his early years.[3] His elder sister was named Teresa. At only eleven years of age, Juan enrolled as a student of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando. During the course of his studies his brother obtained work as a draftsman under Sachetti on the works of the New Palace of Madrid. During his studies he received several prizes, designed the Badajoz City Hall and planned the renovation of the Descalzas Reales. In 1758 he traveled to Italy as a scholarship holder of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando to complete his training, returning to Spain in 1765. The formative and biographical details of this journey, during which he went to Rome, Parma, Naples and Herculaneum, are largely unknown. Numerous drawings made by him survive from this journey. In 1764, during the trip, he published the Órdenes de Vignola.
A year later he made a journey through Córdoba and Granada, together with José de Hermosilla and Juan Pedro Arnal, to draw the "Arab antiquities" (the drawings from this journey were published in 1804).
Settled in Madrid, he was named academician of merit of the Academy of San Fernando. In 1777, King Charles III appointed him architect to the Prince and the Infantes. From then on he would work almost exclusively for the Royal Household. From 1781 he was the architect in charge of the Royal Site of El Escorial; King Charles IV appointed him maestro mayor, a post more frequently referred to as arquitecto mayor.[4]
Work
His style, of great severity and sense of proportion, is characterized as a synthesis between the Herrerian style and neoclassicism. Indeed, his greatest influences are considered to be Juan Bautista de Toledo and Juan de Herrera, the builders of the Monastery of El Escorial.
In 1771 he built the Casa de Infantes at the Royal Site of Aranjuez; in 1772, the Casita del Príncipe at El Pardo; in 1773, the Casita de Arriba (with a Palladian organization and a marked plasticity in the treatment of the entrance portico), for the use of the Infante Don Gabriel, and the Casita de Abajo (or del Príncipe), both at the Royal Site of El Escorial.
In 1768, he was appointed architect of the community of Hieronymite monks of the Monastery of El Escorial, where he completed the enclosure of the Lonja, a space that borders the aforementioned building on its north and west sides. He undertook his first major work, the House of the Infantes and of the Queen (located next to the northern façade of the monastery), in 1769. Sixteen years later, in 1785, he designed the Third Casa de Oficios, in which he maintained the austere line of Juan de Herrera, author of the First and Second Casa de Oficios (1587).
However, his masterpiece is the building of the Cabinet of Natural History, today the Prado Museum (with designs in 1785 and 1787), which was converted into an Art Museum in 1814 and is one of the most beautiful buildings of Spanish neoclassicism. The building now known as the Villanueva Building perfectly sums up Villanueva's style: the predominance of straight lines and the rigorously symmetrical arrangement of the architectural elements.[5] It is a building of monumental layout organized into five bodies, two of them serving as connecting links between the central body (topped by a basilical hall) and the outer lateral bodies. His preferred materials were granite and white stone, with which he constructed buildings of enormous ornamental austerity, in which harmony comes exclusively from the combination of architectural forms (columns, pediments, windows).
He was a prolific architect, to whom are also owed the Casa del Nuevo Rezado (seat of the Royal Academy of History since 1837), the Oratory of the Caballero de Gracia (a neoclassical church with a basilical plan, fitted to an extremely narrow lot, finished with a semicircular apse and an oval dome over the crossing) and the Astronomical Observatory (a centrally planned building with a large entrance portico and a characteristic circular Ionic tempietto as its crowning element) located in the Retiro Gardens, all in the capital. The present appearance of Madrid's Plaza Mayor is also largely his work; he rebuilt it after the fire of 1790, closing off the old urban enclosure through large arcades and making the height of the buildings uniform. As a result of these works the Arco de Cuchilleros and the Portal de Cofreros came into being.
In 1798 a work by Juan de Villanueva was inaugurated in Oviedo, the Monument to Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, which was the first public monument dedicated to a private individual in Spain. The monument has undergone various relocations and vicissitudes, and can currently be seen in a side corner of the Monastery of San Pelayo in Oviedo, on the present-day Calle de Jovellanos of that city.
In 1810, a year before his death, the Grotto of the Campo del Moro, one of his last designs, was excavated. It is an underground passage, partially preserved, through which the western façade of the Royal Palace of Madrid was connected with the gardens of the Casa de Campo.
Considered the architect who, with his personal style not free of local influences, best knew how to bring the theoretical postulates of European neoclassicism to Spain, Villanueva carried out intense architectural activity in Madrid, a city to which he helped give the new appearance of a modern and monumental metropolis that Charles III desired for his capital.[5] A street in the Spanish capital bears his name.
He had a distinguished disciple, Isidro González Velázquez, continuator of the neoclassicism championed by Villanueva. He is the author of works such as the Casa del Labrador in Aranjuez and the Puente del Rey in Madrid.[6]
Works
- House of the Infantes and of the Queen, San Lorenzo de El Escorial (1769)
- Casita de los Infantes, Aranjuez (1771)
- Administrator's House, Ruidera (1783)
- King's House or Casa Grande, Ruidera 17th century
- Casita de Arriba, San Lorenzo de El Escorial (1773)
- Casita de Abajo, El Escorial (1773)
- Royal Gunpowder Factory, Ruidera (1783)
- Royal Botanical Garden, Madrid (1774–1781)
- Lock Bridge, Ruidera (1783)
- Casita del Príncipe, El Pardo (1784)
- Third Casa de Oficios, San Lorenzo de El Escorial (1785)
- Prado Museum, Madrid (1785)
- Canal of the Grand Prior, Argamasilla de Alba and Ruidera, Ciudad Real.
- Casa del Nuevo Rezado (current seat of the Royal Academy of History), Madrid (1788)
- Oratory of the Caballero de Gracia, Madrid (1789)
- School of Midshipmen, Cartagena (1789–1810)
- Gallery of Tuscan columns of the Casa de la Villa, former seat of the Madrid City Council (1789)
- Astronomical Observatory, Madrid (1790)
- Retiro Gardens, Madrid
- Reconstruction of the Plaza Mayor, Madrid (1791)
- Real Instituto Jovellanos, Gijón (1797–1807)
- Acequia del Rey, Villena (1803)
- Teatro del Príncipe, Madrid (1804)
- General Cemetery of the North, Madrid (1804)[7]
- Grotto of the Campo del Moro, Madrid (1810)
- The Palacio de las Columnas, seat of the Faculty of Translation and Interpreting of the University of Granada, is attributed to him
- Palace of the Infanta Luisa Carlota
- Casa de Postas of Tembleque
The neo-Villanovan style
The architecture of Francoism developed a neoclassical, historicist and nationalist style called neo-Villanovan, based on the work of Juan de Villanueva. It was more formal and classical than its sister style, the neo-Herrerian.[8]
References
- ↑ Vicent, David (2008). La obra de Juan de Villanueva en Madrid (in español). Madrid: La Librería. ISBN 978-84-95509-98-3.
{{cite book}}: Check|isbn=value: checksum (help) - ↑ Moleón Gavilanes, Pedro (1998). AKAL (ed.). Juan de Villanueva (in español) (First ed.). Madrid. ISBN 84-460-0732-0.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ↑ Bibliographic usage of "Juan de Villanueva, arquitecto mayor" and "Juan de Villanueva, maestro mayor" in Google Books.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Biografías y Vidas. "Juan de Villanueva" (in español). Retrieved January 19, 2005.
- ↑ Antigüedad del Castillo-Olivares, María Dolores (2015). "Capítulo 2. La arquitectura del Neoclasicismo.". El siglo XIX: la mirada al pasado y la modernidad (in español). Editorial Universitaria Ramón Areces. ISBN 978-84-9961-195-2.
{{cite book}}:|access-date=requires|url=(help) - ↑ Saguar Quer, Carlos (1987). "La última obra de Juan de Villanueva: El cementerio general del norte de Madrid". Goya: Revista de arte (in español) (196): 213–221. ISSN 0017-2715.
- ↑ "La huella del fascismo patrio en la arquitectura de Madrid". www.publico.es (in español). January 13, 2017.
El estilo preferido era el herreriano, expresión grandiosa pero austera del alma inmortal española. También estaban el neoclásico o villanoviano y el neobarroco.
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