Fernando Chueca Goitia. (Madrid, 1911 – 2004 ) Spanish architect and art historian.
Summary
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- 1 Biographical summary
- 1Trayectoria
- 1.1 Years of training
- 1.2 National Architecture Award
- 1.3 A life dedicated to teaching
- 2 Carrots
- 1Trayectoria
- 2 Sources
biographical synthesis
He was born on May 29 , 1911 in Madrid . He was a professor of Art History at the Higher School of Architecture in Madrid and a member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando and of History.
Trajectory
years of training
Once he finished high school, he enrolled in the Higher Technical School of Architecture. Shortly after he entered the university, in 1931, the Second Republic would be proclaimed in Spain . Although he, due to his age, could not vote – he was twenty years old at the time and was still one year short of coming of age – he did participate, together with his father, in the popular fervor of that historic event.
He graduated in 1936 shortly before the outbreak of the Civil War, which surprised him in Santander, where he was on a study trip. In those convulsive moments, and having no news of his family, he decided to go directly to Madrid without informing the military authorities of the so-called national zone. This fact, apparently banal, would have serious consequences for his person, since at the end of the conflict the architects related to Franco considered him disaffected to the regime. He was sentenced, therefore, to ten years of suspension from the exercise of the profession.
Far from what was expected, he made the most of this long period in which he was officially disabled, directing his vocation for architecture towards other channels. Thus, he studied theory and history of architecture and, above all, traveled throughout Spain investigating and mapping, as never before, the innumerable although battered architectural heritage of his.
National Architecture Award
This research work was soon rewarded, and in 1940 he won the first prize from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts for a biographical-artistic work to commemorate the centenary of the neoclassical architect Don Juan de Villanueva. Shortly after, in 1944 , he would obtain the National Prize for Architecture with a project that would accompany him throughout his long career: the completion of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Almudena in Madrid.
In subsequent years his interest in the problem of the conservation and restoration of monuments and urban complexes would be consolidated, becoming one of the leading experts in the field. He, who never maintained dogmatic positions on the matter, liked to say that an old building, before proceeding with its restoration, had to be examined like a sick person. Only then could appropriate and individualized treatment be applied to the “patient.” Proof of this was his respectful intervention, in 1950 , in the Lázaro Galdiano Museum, in which, even completely rebuilding the building, he maintained the layout and form of the old neo-Renaissance palace. Likewise, also in those years, specifically in 1947, saw the light of one of his most relevant essays, Invariants castizos of Spanish architecture. In this work, greatly influenced by the thought of Miguel de Unamuno, whom the young Chueca had met and dealt with personally, he vindicated the specific and differentiated character of Spanish architecture throughout the centuries.
That same year he obtained a scholarship from the Royal Academy of San Fernando to further his studies at Columbia University ( New York ). There he delved into the knowledge and developments of contemporary urbanism and sociology. After finishing these studies, and although he had the opportunity to stay in the United States teaching, he decided to return to Spain, a country for which he felt a deep longing since his departure.
A life dedicated to teaching
On his return he began an intense teaching activity. First as a professor of “History of Urban Planning” at the Institutes of Local Administration and Political Studies. Later, and after winning an opposition, he was appointed tenured professor at the Higher Technical School of Architecture in the subject of “History of Plastic Arts”. Some time later he was made, again through opposition, with the chair of «History of Architecture and Urbanism. Restoration Theory and Technique », a chair he continued to hold until his retirement in 1981 .
His pedagogical work was not an obstacle, however, so that in the following years he continued to carry out new and ambitious architectural projects. He should highlight, among others, the expansion of the Prado Museum ( 1953 – 1958 ), with the adaptation of the wing posted on Ruiz de Alarcón street.
Subsequently, he designed a new extension for the museum in which he intended to incorporate – somewhat anticipating the controversial project that Rafael Moneo would present years later – the neighboring cloister of the Jerónimos monastery. It goes without saying that the project generated a great controversy among the ecclesiastical establishment, which, with the complicity and mediation of Luis Carrero Blanco – then president of the government – managed to prevent the works from ever materializing.
Another of the works for which he felt most appreciation was the headquarters of the Banco de Santander in Vitoria ( 1974-1975 ) , a building that, according to him, summed up all his constructive ideology, namely: the respectful conjunction between tradition and modernity.
His interests were not just limited to history and architecture; After Franco’s death in 1975 , in the convulsive years of the Transition, he devoted himself actively to political life: he was a senator of the Democratic Center Union (UCD) during the first legislature ( 1979 – 1982 ), of the Popular Democratic Party in the second and the Liberal Party, of which he was a founder, in the third.
In those years, he also received countless recognitions and awards. Among the most important ones, it is worth highlighting his entry into the Royal Academy of History in 1966, the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in 1973 , or the presidency of the Institute of Spain from 1978 to 1986 . More recently, between 1999 and 2002 , he was dean of the College of Architects of Madrid. In 1998 he was awarded the Gold Medal for Architecture and in 2002 he was awarded the National Prize for History.
However, the act that made him happiest was the inauguration, in 1993, of the Almudena Cathedral. A classicist-style temple to which he had dedicated fifty years of his life and which, despite much criticism, would have as its main achievement, according to its author, its stylistic assonance with the surroundings, especially with the volumes of the Royal Palace. The unique building hosted the royal wedding of Prince Felipe and Doña Letizia Ortiz on May 22, 2004 . Chueca Goitia declined to attend the wedding due to the delicate state of health of his wife, who died a few days later. October 30, just when he was preparing an exhibition and a series of conferences on the cathedral, he died. He was buried in the Almudena crypt, of which he was the main architect.
Architect, art historian, teacher and writer, Fernando Chueca Goitia became famous with works that were not exempt from controversy and were dismissed as conservative by many of his colleagues. His essayistic work was manifested through works, still influential today, such as Invariants castizos of Spanish architecture ( 1947 ), History of Spanish architecture. Ancient and Middle Ages ( 1965 ), or the History of Western Architecture ( 1974 ). In the years of developmentalism he was especially critical of many of the architectural and urban interventions that sought to modernize the towns and cities of Spain. Precisely, in books such as The Crisis of Architectural Language (1972) or The Destruction of the Spanish Urban Legacy (1977 ) stressed the dangers of what he considered a misunderstood modernity without tradition.
Death
He died on October 30, 2004 at the Ruber Clinic in Madrid. He is buried next to his wife in the crypt of the Almudena Cathedral, a work to which he dedicated 50 years of his 93 years of life.