Juan Talavera (y Heredia)

(b Seville, 29 Dec 1880; d Seville, 13 Dec 1960). Spanish architect. Son of the architect Juan Talavera y de la Vega, he studied in Madrid, graduating in 1909. He always worked in Seville, at first following the precepts of Art Nouveau and incorporating foreign influences, especially from such Secession architects as Joseph Maria Olbrich. In such buildings as the houses in Calle Viriato 9 (1909), Seville, he added the regionalist influence of A. Gonz?lez to Art Nouveau motifs. In the following years Talavera reconciled private commissions with his post as municipal architect, producing an overall plan for Seville in 1917. His buildings were characterized by sevillanismo, the recreation of styles, in particular the Mud?jar and the Plateresque, that are typical of Seville (e.g. the Chafar house in Plaza San Francisco 11, 1914, in a Mud?jar Revival style). From 1916 Talavera's buildings showed the influence of the Baroque, apparent not only in their ornamentation and colour but also in their harmonious proportions, as in the house he owned in Plaza Santa Cruz 1 (1919), where the three rows of three windows contrast with the free placing of windows in Mud?jar Revival buildings. At that time Talavera was also establishing the 'white architecture' peculiar to him, in which bare brick was replaced by whitewashed walls, and ceramic ornamentation by painted neo-Baroque motifs. Such buildings as the Armario house in Plaza de Do?a Elvira 5 (1922) served as models for his followers in this style. The high point of Talavera's neo-Baroque style was c. 1925, in various works, including the Central de la Compa??a Telef?nica Nacional (1926-8) in the Plaza Nueva. In 1923, in plans for chalets for the Inmobiliaria Nervi?n, Seville, Talavera began creating a synthesis of the architectural elements characteristic of the Baroque in Seville, which he later used in such country buildings as the Hotel Oromana (1925-9) in Alcal? de Guadaira, Seville, and in the building that was considered the manifesto of 'white architecture', the Pabell?n de Agricultura (1925-8) in the Exposici?n Ibero-Americana de Sevilla. Built around two patios with turrets and fronted by a Baroque fa?ade with twisted columns, it epitomized the virtues of Talavera's form of regionalism, which because of its authenticity, economy and ease of construction constituted the basis of subsequent architectural regionalism.

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