Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church
Encyclopedia
The Primera Iglesia Metodista Unida de Ponce (English: First United Methodist Church of Ponce. Officially, Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church) was the first structure erected in Puerto Rico by the celebrated architect Antonin Nechodoma
. The building, which houses a Methodist-faith church, is located on Villa street in Ponce, Puerto Rico
, in the city's historic district
and dates from 1907. The structure was listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places
on October 29, 1987.
, and byzantine
elements. It is constructed entirely of rusticated, reinforced-concrete with gabled wood and corrugated sheet metal roofs. In volume, the church consists of a gabled single-nave, parallel to the street and subdivided into three sections. A large, central cross-gable creates the main facade at Calle Villa, facing north.
On Calle Villa, the cross-gable is articulated by a Spanish-baroque style rope pediment. Flanking this gabled, central transept are two square-plan towers, a shorter turret
on the west and a taller bell-tower on the east, both resting upon the intersections of the main nave and cross-gable. The main gable
is divided into three bays: a wide, central bay with a large, wide, four-centered gothic arch stained-glass window and two flanking bays with similar but smaller and narrower stained-glass windows. Above the central bay, a stained glass Spanish-renaissance oculus (consisting of a square with semicircular projections at each of its four sides) occupies the area within the pediment.
The east bell-tower consists of a two-storey rusticated base and step-backs to an onion-shaped cupola
above the belfry
. At the ground level, an entry vestibule
is created by an open, four-centered archway. At the second story, still within the tower's rusticated base-section, a series of four narrow, stained-glass strip windows provide a distinct, modernist, element. The first segment of the step-backs of the tower contains two smaller strip windows, and the following, taller set-back houses the church-bell behind narrow arches, one on each of the four sides, supported by Corinthian
columns. The onion-cupola caps the composition.
The smaller, west tower
is completely rusticated and terminates in a rope pediment, at a level slightly lower than the base of the opposite tower. At the ground level there is a vestibule similar to that of the other tower and above, a circular opening with an oculus within. The main nave
extends only one bay beyond the towers. These bays are identical to the smaller stained-glass bays of the main gable. A series of low buttresses supports all major walls, one at each extreme of. each wall. The side gables of the main nave repeat, exactly, the articulation of the facade
of the main cross-gable.
A rusticated concrete and wrought-iron gate
surrounds the property, articulated by square pillar
s at approximately 20 foot intervals, and spanned by an approximately 2 foot high rusticated concrete
base and bar-like wrought-iron railings above.
. This Czech
architect was one of the first non-Hispanic designers to work in Puerto Rico. A colleague of Frank Lloyd Wright under Louis Sullivan, Nechodoma was responsible for the development of the Puerto Rican Bungalow style which spread rapidly throughout the Island during the 1920s
and 1930s
. Nechodoma was author of at least three non-Roman-Catholic churches and many magnificent prairie
-style upper-class residences. Most of Nechodoma's buildings have unfortunately been demolished, and most of his remaining structures are now considered landmarks.
Nechodoma's works were carried out between 1907 and 1928, and the original plans of the church are dated 1907. This fact provides reason to believe that the Methodist Episcopal Church of Ponce was the first structure erected in Puerto Rico by the celebrated architect
.
The materials used to construct the church are also of importance in the history of construction in Puerto Rico. Reinforced concrete
, the principal material used in the church, was seldom, if at all, used at this early date in Puerto Rico. Contemporary concrete buildings exhibited a lack of understanding of the then-new material, evidenced by extremely thick wall
s and excessive use of iron
beam
s (traditional means of construction applied to modern materials). These characteristics are not found in the construction of this building; quite the contrary, the concrete is used in an elegant and even decorative fashion, evidencing Nechodoma's knowledge of North-American construction techniques and his complete distance from the local building customs. In fact, the building appears to be made of stone
and not concrete.
This church is also important in Puerto Rico's religious history since it was one of the first non-Roman Catholic churches built after the change of sovereignty in 1898. Until then, the only non-Catholic church allowed to practice in Puerto Rico had been the Anglican church. The Methodist Church is an example of the freedom of worship instated after the U.S. occupation of the island, and is the most prominent non-Catholic structure in the city of Ponce.
Antonin Nechodoma
Antonin Nechodoma , was a Czech architect who practiced in Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic from 1905 to 1928. He is known for the introduction of the Prairie Style to the Caribbean and the integration of Arts and Crafts elements to his architecture...
. The building, which houses a Methodist-faith church, is located on Villa street in Ponce, Puerto Rico
Ponce, Puerto Rico
Ponce is both a city and a municipality in the southern part of Puerto Rico. The city is the seat of the municipal government.The city of Ponce, the fourth most populated in Puerto Rico, and the most populated outside of the San Juan metropolitan area, is named for Juan Ponce de León y Loayza, the...
, in the city's historic district
Ponce Historic Zone
The Ponce Historic Zone is a historic district in downtown Ponce, Puerto Rico with construction that dates to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The zone was originally designated in 1962, and then it only included the center core of the city, but it has since been expanded to...
and dates from 1907. The structure was listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
on October 29, 1987.
Physical appearance
The First United Methodist Church of Ponce is a magnificent example of early 20th century eclecticism, integrating Neo-Gothic, Spanish Revival, Spanish BaroqueSpanish Baroque
Spanish Baroque is a strand of Baroque architecture that evolved in Spain and its provinces and former colonies, notably Spanish America and Belgium....
, and byzantine
Byzantine
Byzantine usually refers to the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages.Byzantine may also refer to:* A citizen of the Byzantine Empire, or native Greek during the Middle Ages...
elements. It is constructed entirely of rusticated, reinforced-concrete with gabled wood and corrugated sheet metal roofs. In volume, the church consists of a gabled single-nave, parallel to the street and subdivided into three sections. A large, central cross-gable creates the main facade at Calle Villa, facing north.
On Calle Villa, the cross-gable is articulated by a Spanish-baroque style rope pediment. Flanking this gabled, central transept are two square-plan towers, a shorter turret
Turret
In architecture, a turret is a small tower that projects vertically from the wall of a building such as a medieval castle. Turrets were used to provide a projecting defensive position allowing covering fire to the adjacent wall in the days of military fortification...
on the west and a taller bell-tower on the east, both resting upon the intersections of the main nave and cross-gable. The main gable
Gable
A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of a sloping roof. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system being used and aesthetic concerns. Thus the type of roof enclosing the volume dictates the shape of the gable...
is divided into three bays: a wide, central bay with a large, wide, four-centered gothic arch stained-glass window and two flanking bays with similar but smaller and narrower stained-glass windows. Above the central bay, a stained glass Spanish-renaissance oculus (consisting of a square with semicircular projections at each of its four sides) occupies the area within the pediment.
The east bell-tower consists of a two-storey rusticated base and step-backs to an onion-shaped cupola
Cupola
In architecture, a cupola is a small, most-often dome-like, structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome....
above the belfry
Bell tower
A bell tower is a tower which contains one or more bells, or which is designed to hold bells, even if it has none. In the European tradition, such a tower most commonly serves as part of a church and contains church bells. When attached to a city hall or other civic building, especially in...
. At the ground level, an entry vestibule
Vestibule (architecture)
A vestibule is a lobby, entrance hall, or passage between the entrance and the interior of a building.The same term can apply to structures in modern or ancient roman architecture. In modern architecture vestibule typically refers to a small room or hall between an entrance and the interior of...
is created by an open, four-centered archway. At the second story, still within the tower's rusticated base-section, a series of four narrow, stained-glass strip windows provide a distinct, modernist, element. The first segment of the step-backs of the tower contains two smaller strip windows, and the following, taller set-back houses the church-bell behind narrow arches, one on each of the four sides, supported by Corinthian
Corinthian order
The Corinthian order is one of the three principal classical orders of ancient Greek and Roman architecture. The other two are the Doric and Ionic. When classical architecture was revived during the Renaissance, two more orders were added to the canon, the Tuscan order and the Composite order...
columns. The onion-cupola caps the composition.
The smaller, west tower
Tower
A tower is a tall structure, usually taller than it is wide, often by a significant margin. Towers are distinguished from masts by their lack of guy-wires....
is completely rusticated and terminates in a rope pediment, at a level slightly lower than the base of the opposite tower. At the ground level there is a vestibule similar to that of the other tower and above, a circular opening with an oculus within. The main nave
Nave
In Romanesque and Gothic Christian abbey, cathedral basilica and church architecture, the nave is the central approach to the high altar, the main body of the church. "Nave" was probably suggested by the keel shape of its vaulting...
extends only one bay beyond the towers. These bays are identical to the smaller stained-glass bays of the main gable. A series of low buttresses supports all major walls, one at each extreme of. each wall. The side gables of the main nave repeat, exactly, the articulation of the facade
Facade
A facade or façade is generally one exterior side of a building, usually, but not always, the front. The word comes from the French language, literally meaning "frontage" or "face"....
of the main cross-gable.
A rusticated concrete and wrought-iron gate
Gate
A gate is a point of entry to a space enclosed by walls, or a moderately sized opening in a fence. Gates may prevent or control entry or exit, or they may be merely decorative. Other terms for gate include yett and port...
surrounds the property, articulated by square pillar
Column
A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a vertical structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. For the purpose of wind or earthquake engineering, columns may be designed to resist lateral forces...
s at approximately 20 foot intervals, and spanned by an approximately 2 foot high rusticated concrete
Concrete
Concrete is a composite construction material, composed of cement and other cementitious materials such as fly ash and slag cement, aggregate , water and chemical admixtures.The word concrete comes from the Latin word...
base and bar-like wrought-iron railings above.
Significance
The Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church of Ponce is a very good example of Antonin Nechodoma's religious architectureReligious architecture
Sacred architecture is a religious architectural practice concerned with the design and construction of places of worship and/or sacred or intentional space, such as churches, mosques, stupas, synagogues, and temples...
. This Czech
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
architect was one of the first non-Hispanic designers to work in Puerto Rico. A colleague of Frank Lloyd Wright under Louis Sullivan, Nechodoma was responsible for the development of the Puerto Rican Bungalow style which spread rapidly throughout the Island during the 1920s
1920s
File:1920s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: Third Tipperary Brigade Flying Column No. 2 under Sean Hogan during the Irish Civil War; Prohibition agents destroying barrels of alcohol in accordance to the 18th amendment, which made alcoholic beverages illegal throughout the entire decade; In...
and 1930s
1930s
File:1930s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: Dorothea Lange's photo of the homeless Florence Thompson show the effects of the Great Depression; Due to the economic collapse, the farms become dry and the Dust Bowl spreads through America; The Battle of Wuhan during the Second Sino-Japanese...
. Nechodoma was author of at least three non-Roman-Catholic churches and many magnificent prairie
Prairie School
Prairie School was a late 19th and early 20th century architectural style, most common to the Midwestern United States.The works of the Prairie School architects are usually marked by horizontal lines, flat or hipped roofs with broad overhanging eaves, windows grouped in horizontal bands,...
-style upper-class residences. Most of Nechodoma's buildings have unfortunately been demolished, and most of his remaining structures are now considered landmarks.
Nechodoma's works were carried out between 1907 and 1928, and the original plans of the church are dated 1907. This fact provides reason to believe that the Methodist Episcopal Church of Ponce was the first structure erected in Puerto Rico by the celebrated architect
Architect
An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...
.
The materials used to construct the church are also of importance in the history of construction in Puerto Rico. Reinforced concrete
Reinforced concrete
Reinforced concrete is concrete in which reinforcement bars , reinforcement grids, plates or fibers have been incorporated to strengthen the concrete in tension. It was invented by French gardener Joseph Monier in 1849 and patented in 1867. The term Ferro Concrete refers only to concrete that is...
, the principal material used in the church, was seldom, if at all, used at this early date in Puerto Rico. Contemporary concrete buildings exhibited a lack of understanding of the then-new material, evidenced by extremely thick wall
Wall
A wall is a usually solid structure that defines and sometimes protects an area. Most commonly, a wall delineates a building and supports its superstructure, separates space in buildings into rooms, or protects or delineates a space in the open air...
s and excessive use of iron
Iron
Iron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust...
beam
Beam (structure)
A beam is a horizontal structural element that is capable of withstanding load primarily by resisting bending. The bending force induced into the material of the beam as a result of the external loads, own weight, span and external reactions to these loads is called a bending moment.- Overview...
s (traditional means of construction applied to modern materials). These characteristics are not found in the construction of this building; quite the contrary, the concrete is used in an elegant and even decorative fashion, evidencing Nechodoma's knowledge of North-American construction techniques and his complete distance from the local building customs. In fact, the building appears to be made of stone
Rock (geology)
In geology, rock or stone is a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals and/or mineraloids.The Earth's outer solid layer, the lithosphere, is made of rock. In general rocks are of three types, namely, igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic...
and not concrete.
This church is also important in Puerto Rico's religious history since it was one of the first non-Roman Catholic churches built after the change of sovereignty in 1898. Until then, the only non-Catholic church allowed to practice in Puerto Rico had been the Anglican church. The Methodist Church is an example of the freedom of worship instated after the U.S. occupation of the island, and is the most prominent non-Catholic structure in the city of Ponce.
External links
See also
- The Puerto Rico Eagle. Feb. 1, 1909.
- Architects and Builders' Magazine. 1909, p. 289.
- Eduardo Newman Gandia. Breve Historia de la Ciudad de Ponce. Ponce, Puerto Rico: 1913.
- Directorio Comercial de Ponce. 1985.