Blas C. Silva Boucher was a prominent twentieth-century Puerto Rican

Puerto Rican people

A Puerto Rican is a person who was born in Puerto Rico.Puerto Ricans born and raised in the continental United States are also sometimes referred to as Puerto Ricans, although they were not born in Puerto Rico...

 engineer

Engineer

An engineer is a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical problems. Engineers design materials, structures, machines and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality,...

 from 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...

. He is credited with the creation of the Ponce Creole

Ponce Creole

Ponce Creole is an architectural style created in Ponce, Puerto Rico in the late 18th and early 19th century. This style of Puerto Rican buildings is found predominantly in residential homes in Ponce that developed between 1895 and 1920...

 architectural style

Architectural style

Architectural styles classify architecture in terms of the use of form, techniques, materials, time period, region and other stylistic influences. It overlaps with, and emerges from the study of the evolution and history of architecture...

.

Early years

Blas Silva was born in Hormigueros. He received his high school diploma from the Liceo de Mayaguez (Mayaguez Liceum) and then studied engineering in Spain through a scholarship from the Sociedad Protectora de la Inteligencia de San Juan (San Juan Intelligence Protection Society).

Schooling

In Madrid, Silva did freelance school work in road, drainage, and ports engineering. He then entered the prestigious Spanish National Engineering School

Technical University of Madrid

The Technical University of Madrid or sometimes called Polytechnic University of Madrid is a Spanish University, located in Madrid. It was founded in 1971 as the result of merging different Technical Schools of Engineering and Architecture, originated mainly in the 18th century...

 where he studied for eight years. He did his practicum

Practicum

A practicum is a college course, often in a specialized field of study, that is designed to give students supervised practical application of a previously or concurrently studied theory. Practicums are common for education and social work majors...

s in Aragón, Cataluña, and Valencia, Spain.

Professional life

He returned to the Island where he took an engineering position in the Puerto Rico Public Works Bureau. Three years later, he resigned to establish his own private engineering practice. When the post of City Engineer became vacant in the city of Ponce, Silva was unanimously selected, from among various applicants, as the candidate to fill the position.

Legacy

Among Silva's most distinguished works are the Font-Ubides House

Font-Ubides House

Casa Font-Ubides , also known as the Residencia Monsanto is a historic building located on the north side of Castillo Street in Ponce, Puerto Rico, in the city's historic district. The building dates from 1913. It was designed by the architect Blas Silva...

 (1913), and the Subira Residence (1910), both listed in the 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...

. He also designed and built the Salazar-Candal House

Salazar-Candal House

Casa Salazar-Candal is a historic building located on the southeast corner of Isabel and Mayor Cantera streets in Ponce, Puerto Rico, in the city's historic district. The building dates from 1911. It was designed by the architect Blas Silva. The architecture consists of 19th Classical revival,...

 (1919). He is also recognized at Ponce's Park of the Illustrious Ponce Citizens.

Contemporary recognition

The Puerto Rico Historical Preservation Office recently said of him, "Blas Silva was probably the most established of the 'wedding-cake architects' and was thus sought after mostly by the 'nouveau riche' of the period. Silva's houses are among the richest in Ponce, among which the [Font-Ubides] stands out for its circular porches." It also added that "Silva, as had other foreign-trained architects, succeeded in integrating classical education with the traditional elements of the Spanish Caribbean."

See also

• Alfredo Wiechers
• Francisco Porrata Doria
  Francisco Porrata Doria
  Francisco Porrata-Doria was a twentieth-century Puerto Rican architect from Ponce, Puerto Rico. Porrata-Doria was a pioneer in the development of the local modern architecture and one of the architects responsible for what has been called "Ponce Monumental Architecture", of which the Banco Crédito...