Casa Vives
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Casa Vives
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Casa Vives in 2017
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 Location of Ponce and Casa Vives in Puerto Rico
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| Location | 88 at Calle Castillo Ponce, Puerto Rico |
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| Coordinates | 18°00′51″N 66°36′49″W / 18.014097°N 66.613524°WCoordinates: 18°00′51″N 66°36′49″W / 18.014097°N 66.613524°W |
| Area | 1,174 square meters (12,640 sq ft) |
| Built | 1860 |
| Architect | Juan Bertoly Carderoni |
| Architectural style | Neoclassical |
| NRHP Reference # | 13000013 |
| Added to NRHP | 13 February 2013 |
Casa Vives (Vives House) is a historic building located in the Ponce Historic Zone in Ponce, Puerto Rico, across from the Plaza de Mercado de Ponce. The home was designed and built by Juan Bertoli Calderoni for Carlos Vives, a prominent local merchant and owner of Hacienda Buena Vista. The home was built in 1860, in the neoclassical style, making it one of the first brick and mortar homes built in the city. It was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places on 13 February 2013. Architecturally, Casa Vives retains all seven aspects of integrity: location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling and association.
Casa Vives is a two-story, L-shaped brick and masonry building located at 88 Paseo Atocha, corner of Castillo Street, two blocks north from the town's main plaza in the traditional urban center in the municipality of Ponce. The flatroofed with parapet structure was built in 1860 in the Neoclassical tradition. The residence occupies a lot of 1,174 square meters. Believed, by the Puerto Rico Office of Historic Preservation, to have been designed by local architect Juan Bertoli Calderoni and built by Carlos Milan, Casa Vives' elegance, details, materials and quality of craftsmanship, is one of the best preserved 19th century houses in the island. The building epitomizes the quintessential architecture associated with the 19th century upper classes that projected their class vision upon the built landscape of the major urban centers in the island, being the city of Ponce its best example.
Casa Vives sits in a very prominent corner lot, with its residential entrance facing , the main commercial artery within the traditional urban core. The longitudinal axis of the building's elevation faces Castillo Street, another important commercial artery, across from the 19th century Plaza del Mercado building. The Neoclassical Casa Vives building has a dominating presence within the area. During the second half of the 19th century, the construction period of Casa Vives, the city's well-to-do citizens shaped the urban center in many ways, one of these being through its architecture, one of the most enduring means. This urban bourgeoisie competed for social status and public recognition using architecture to express their personal achievement and social aspirations. Their residences became social statements that ultimately differentiated Ponce's architecture from any other urban center in the Island, and ultimately created the unique and internationally recognized Ponce Creole architectural style. In contrast to Old San Juan, for example, whose residential architecture materialized through the repetitious application of an anonymous facade representing the official establishment's homogenous parameters, Ponce's urban center developed around individual buildings where each family strived to impress through the built landscape their individuality. The social discourse of Ponce's urban center facades created an urban element based, contrary to Old San Juan, not on homogeneity but on its diversity. Sociologist Angel Quintero Rivera has suggested that the elaboration of Ponce's residential urban center facades manifest a cultural character associated to a Manorial worldview, where the patrician families, upon their "generosity", perceived their residence as a gift to the public and a way to embellish and dignify their city. In Puerto Rico, Casa Vives is considered one of the best remaining examples of homes in this social context.
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