Joaquín María Arnau Miramón – Wikipedia, free encyclopedia

Joaquín María Arnau Miramón (Valencia, March 16, 1849 – September 8, 1906) was a Spanish architect, considered the most important of Valencian eclectic romanticism. To him, examples of the application of iron to the Valencian architecture of the late nineteenth century and some of the most innovative proposals in terms of design and use of new materials must be highlighted.

In Valencia he conducts his first studies. In 1869 he entered the School of Architecture of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Carlos, where he studied until in September 1870, having been suppressed the teaching of architecture in Valencia, he is forced to continue his studies at school Superior of Architecture in Madrid, who at that time made profession of eclecticism in his teachings.

In Madrid he has the opportunity to know the first important applications of iron in architecture and the beginnings of Neomudejarismo. He obtains the title of architect on April 25, 1874. On June 8 of the same year he is appointed architect of the Píos de Santiago and Montserrat places In the city of Rome. This institution of support for Spanish intellectuals and artists residing in Rome has a series of buildings. The young Arnau is responsible for the restoration and conservation of these places. His stay in Rome allows him the thorough study of classical art and a knowledge of Italian architecture of the risorgimento. As soon as a year in Rome has elapsed, he returns to his native Valencia where he married his cousin Elisa Moles, after dispensation papal required by kinship.

In that year, 1875, Arnau Miramón is appointed municipal architect of the Valencia City Council, where he meets the obligations of his position with undoubted efficiency and a severity characteristic. Together with José Calvo Tomás and Luis Ferreres Soler, he works for those years in the Valencia Ensanche Plan, signing in 1884, with these architects, a new General Plan of Valencia and Ensanche project, which is approved three years later: in 1887 After ten years of service, he requests his resignation from the position of municipal architect to fully devote himself to the private exercise of his profession, change probably led to his relationship with the Countess of Ripalda.

In 1877 he designed a project of monument to King D. Jaime that together with another model of Model farm are presented at the exhibition that in February of that year is held at the Academy of Fine Arts of San Carlos on the occasion of the visit to Valencia of the Valencia of the King Alfonso XII.

His first known work in Valencia was the reform and renewal of the north facade of the Church of the convent of the Pie de la Cruz. That same year, 1883, he designed for the church of San Esteban an altar of Byzantine style destined to guard the body of San Luis Beltrán, which is venerated in that church. Subsequently, in December 1886, on behalf of the Count of Trigona on behalf of the Great Home Association of Our Lady of the Forsaken, he carried out the project, on the laundering street, of a large hall for the distribution of food rations to the families to the families poor. This hall, known today as the Racionistas Salon, constitutes one of his most outstanding and known works, due to the original use of a metal vault to cover the large room ship.

In 1887 he made for the nuns of Jesus and Mary, the restoration works of the former Augustine convent of Our Lady of Socorro, which mainly affected the interior of the Church and other units, in order to install the school of the same name there, as So much importance was in the event of Valencian social life in the following decades.

As of these years, his relationship with María Josefa Paulín de la Peña, Countess of Ripalda, who commissioned her to carry out important works, among which they stand out: a palace residence for herself in La Alameda, and a large building building, and a building of great packaging , with interior passage, on San Vicente street. Regarding the Palacio de Ripalda, it was a peculiar building, conceived as a chateau French, within an unprecedented romantic perspective in the city. Its construction can be located between 1889 and 1891. The building of San Vicente Street was projected in 1889 with facades to this San Vicente street and to the Plaza de la Pelota -To Moratín street. Between both facades, a wide passage covered by paid metallic armor with glass plates is extended. Today is known as the Ripalda passage. The facades of the building have been very altered.

In 1893 he was appointed number of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Carlos and was in charge of pronouncing, on October 6, 1895, the course of opening of the same, with a conference entitled The ogival art .

Regarding housing buildings, Arnau Miramón shows a special predilection for rectangular openings with embocado that mimic the masonry, or brick arches. In the decoration, in general very sober, the use of cast iron on balconies, turns, auctions and acroteries is abundant. The Peris House (1886) is served as an example in the descent of San Francisco, the House Oliag (1891) on San Vicente Street, the house of the Low Street corner Portal de Valldigna (1898) or the Sancho house (1900) in the La Paz Street. In 1896 he received the commission of projecting the social house of the Valencian Circle, where he devised a kind of ojivas porch, closed by windows. On both sides there were torhed bodies of neo -Gothic style. We can find references to the neo -Gothic style in the Verges House (1898) and in the Rotglá House (1900). That same year he builds a hermitage on the old road in Torrente, in which medievalizing motifs and elements of neogriego are mixed. Today this hermitage has become the parish church of Our Lady of the Forsaken and San Isidro, in the San Isidro neighborhood.

In the following years Arnau Miramón projects two of its most important buildings, the Sancho House on the street of La Paz and the Palacio de Fuentehermosa, on Caballeros Street in front of La Palau de la Generalitad. The Sancho house, built in 1900 is a five -storey building with angle facades that are integrated into a polygonal plant flown. It is one of the most emblematic buildings and more careful design of La Paz Street.

As of 1903, the Palacio de Fuentehermosa, also known as the Palace of the Marqués de Castellfort, built for Pascual Garrigues, whose facade uses classicist, Renaissance, neogriegos and medievalizing elements to achieve the most important work of eclecticism in Valencia. The large polygonal plant viewpoints located at the angles of the facade at the height of the main floor and the domes that crowned their ends stand out. Inside the most remarkable is the luxurious hall with its white marble staircase, which receives the light for a zenith.

Other important buildings of this period are the Merlé House (1901) with a neogriego -style iron viewpoint on the central balcon Pintor Sorolla and the Montesinos house ended in April 1905 on Pizarro Street Gran Vía corner. All of them have disappeared today.

In 1906 he was commissioned by the construction of a building for the Institute of Deafblind and Blind, better known as Sumsi Asylum. His death, which occurred that same year, prevented him from directing this work of simple and functional lines, as was characteristic in the beneficial buildings of the time.

Even in 1904, another important project, the Church and convent of San Vicente Ferrer, the Dominican Church on Cirilo Amorós Street. It is a neo -Gothic church, treated very orthodox, without any concession to modernism. It has a Latin cross plant, atrium, five ships, cruise, four chapels per side and apse with Girola. Death prevented him from directing this work, which was carried out by the architect Francisco Almenar Quinzá.

His last work in Valencia was La Casa Rocafull, on the Gran Vía Marqués del Turia and whose facade has suffered various alterations.

Outside the city of Valencia he carried out numerous works, among which the asylum of Santo Domingo de Villanueva de Castellón stands out, with its 365 windows, one for every day of the year. Today is the Santo Domingo College in that town.

Other works outside of Valencia are the Church of Our Lady of the Castle in Cullera, on a project by J. Belda, the restoration works in Santa María in Alcoy and the dome of the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Sales in Swedish. In Ontentena he carried out the works of the Chapel of the Communion of the Church of San Carlos Borromeo and the convent of Franciscans, and in Segorbe the choir of his Cathedral of Segorbe, but perhaps his best known work is the restoration of the Ducal Palace of Gandía.

His intellectual activity was relatively intense with speeches and works for the many cultural and religious entities to which he belonged. His death took place in Godella, where he spent rest seasons during the summers, on September 8, 1906 at fifty -seven years of age.

The baron of Alcahalí (1850-1924), in its Biographical Dictionary of Valencian Artists He describes him as a competent and laborious man, with a simple and modest treatment, and who always avoided the devices of his talent.

Representative works [ To edit ]

1883

• Reform of the facade of the church of the convent of the foot of the cross.
• Altar project of San Luis Beltrán in the church of San Esteban.

1886

• Rationist Hall on Blanquerías street No. 15.
• Houses in the descent of San Francisco no. 34. (Missing)

1887

1889

1891

• House Oliag on San Vicente Street No. 27 to 31.

1896

• Social House of the Valencian Circle between the streets San Vicente de la Chamorra and Vallet. (missing)
• La Paz Calle House no. 26, next to the Calle San Juan de Ribera.

1898

• Baja street no. 30, skiing in Portal de Valldigna.
• Verges house In the Barcelona street no. 10 and 12 San Vicente de la Chamorra. (disappeared)

1900

• Hermitage on the old road of Torrente, today Parish Church of Our Lady of the Forsakers and San Isidro, on San Isidro 2 Street, Valencia 46014.
• ROTGLÁ HOUSE In San Vicente street no. 107. (Missing)
• Sancho house on La Paz Street, corner of comedies.

1901

• Merlé house on María de Molina Street, corner to San Andrés no. 102, next to Villarrasa Square. (missing). Disappeared in the extension of the Marqués de Dos Aguas Palace.
• Expansion of the Verges house .
• Asyluation of Santo Domingo in Villanueva de Casellón (Valencia)

1903

• Palacio de Fuentehermosa in Calleros Street no. 9.
• House Colón Calle , for yourself, on Colón Street No. 22. (missing)
• SALVADOR MONZA HOUSE on Pintor Sorolla street no. 6. (Missing)
• Montesinos house On Pizarro Street on the corner with Gran Vía (missing)

1904

1906

Unknown year

Photo gallery [ To edit ]

• 

  Facade of the Racionistas Salon.

• 
• 

Bibliography [ To edit ]

• The architecture of eclecticism in Valencia: Vertientes of Valencian architecture between 1875 and 1925 . Benito Goerlich, D. Valencia City Council, 1992.

• Know Valencia through its architecture . Several authors. Ed. Official College of Architects of the Valencian Community-City Hall of Valencia, Valencia. 2001.

• The great rationist hall of Joaquín Mª Arnau Miramón or the daring of innovation . MA Sánchez Verduch. Article published in “Archive of Valenciano Archive” Year: 1997. number: 78. p. 32 -3

• Arnau Miramón’s architecture in Valencia in 1900 . Paper of Arnau Amo, Joaquín; Peiró López, Mª Teresa and Poyatos Sebastián, Javier.

• Santo Domingo in Villanueva of Castelón . Almanac the provinces for 1902, year XXIII, Valencia 1901, pp. 411s.

• Biographical Dictionary of Valencian Artists . José Ruiz de Lihory (Baron de Alcahalí). Awarded work in the Floral Games of Lo Rat – Penat in 1894. Facsimile reproduction of the edition published by the printing press of Federico Doménech in 1897. Valencia, Paris -Valencia, 1989.

• News of the Valencian artists of the nineteenth century . Vicente Boix. Valencia, 1877.

• The Ensanche of the City of Valencia of 1884 . Official College of Architects of Valencia, 1984.

external links [ To edit ]