Filippo Juvarra
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Filippo Juvarra, (in Spain Felipe Juvara), (March 7, 1678 in Messina - January 31, 1736 in Madrid) was an Italian architect and scene designer with a cosmopolitan outlook.
After formative apprentice years in Sicily, as a member of artisan family of goldsmiths and engravers, where he designed Messina's festive settings for the coronation of Philip V of Spain and Sicily (1705), Juvarra moved to Rome in 1703; there he studied architecture with Carlo and Francesco Fontana.
The first phase of his independent career was occupied with designs for ceremonies and celebrations and especially with designs for theaters, in which he created a new type of theatrical space of virtuoso illusionism to supplant the rigorous architectural head-on perspectives inherited from the 16th century. He also designed theatrical machines and mechanisms, at Teatro S. Bartolommeo, Naples (1706), and at the established Teatro Capranica, Rome (1713). He worked as well in the capacity of a scene-designer for private theatres, in particular for the little theatre at Palazzo della Cancelleria of Cardinal Ottoboni (1709) and a little theater for the Queen of Poland at Palazzo Zuccari, both extremely prominent commissions. In 1713 a theater project took him to Genoa.
In 1706 Juvarra won a contest for the new sacristy at St Peter's, organized by Pope Clement XI, and became a member of the prestigious Accademia di San Luca. In 1708 he created his first important non-theatrical architectural work, and the only one realized in Rome: the Antamori Chapel in the church of San Gerolamo della Carità .
Juvarra was also an engraver: his book of engravings of sculpted coats-of-arms appeared in 1711, Raccolta di varie targhe fatte da professori primarii di Roma [link].
Juvarra's period of most intensive activity as an architect began in 1714, when after a sojourn in Messina, he moved to Piedmont where Victor Amadeus II of Savoy first employed him in a scenographic project, then named Juvarra the first architect of the court. The fame obtained here thanks to his talent and capacities determined his further activity at the richest noble and royal courts of Europe: in 1719 he was in Portugal, planning the palace at Mafra for Joao V (1719–20), after which he traveled to London and Paris.
Among numerous created or projected works for the capital of the Kingdom of Sardinia should be noticed:
- Basilica di Superga (1715-1718) built on the high hill over the Turin;
- the facade of the church Santa Cristina (1715-1718);
- Basilica della NativitÃ
- Palazzo Madama, Turin (from 1718)
- the project for the third enlargement of Turin to the west according to the orthogonal system introduced by Vitozzi and Castellamonte: the project including construction of palazzo Martini di Cigala (1716), of Quartieri Militari (1716-1728) and later of the church del Carmine (1732-1736), where the space is concentrated around the central hall with the scenographic effect of light falling from above.
In 1735 the architect was invited to Madrid by the Bourbon king of Spain, Felipe V, for whom he executed the projects for the Royal Palace, Granja de San Ildefonso and Palacio Real de Aranjuez, executed after the death of Juvarra by G.B. Sacchetti and other pupils.
Juvarra and Johann Fischer von Erlach influenced one another through the medium of engravings. Juvarra was largely ignored by Anglophone architectural historians. A 1994 exhibition held at Genoa and Madrid helped redress the imbalance.
References
- R. Pommer, 1967. Eighteenth Century Architecture in Piedmont
- Gianfranco Gritella, 1992. Juvarra: L'architettura (in Italian)
- Mercedes Viale Ferraro, 1970. Filippo Juvarra: Scenografo e architetto teatrale (Turin: Fratelli Pozzo)
- ["Scenografie di Juvarra"] (in Italian)
- [Riccardo Cigola, "F. Juvarra"]
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