José Refugio Reyes Rivas (September 2, 1862 - February 3, 1943) was a Mexican architect, author of some of the most representative buildings of the city of Aguascalientes, where his work is considered part of the historical and architectural heritage. Reyes did not have professional architectural studies, so he is called "empirical architect". In 1985 he received the post mortem title of architect, granted by the Autonomous University of Aguascalientes. Reyes completed more than 200 buildings in the states of Zacatecas, Jalisco and Aguascalientes. He was characterized by his use of diverse decorative styles, from neoclassical to Art Nouveau, as well as construction innovations of the first half of the 20th century.
Among his most outstanding works are the Templo de San Antonio, the renovation of the Templo de Guadalupe, the Templo de la Purísima Concepción, the construction of several hotels, such as the París, Francia, Regis and Washington, and the current Museo de Aguascalientes. Several of these buildings are currently museums or are part of the governmental institutions of the state and the city of Aguascalientes.
Biography
Refugio Reyes was born on September 2, 1862, as he himself tells in some autobiographical notes. However, in the registry books of Sauceda la Borda there is no indication of his name, but of Esteban, due to the fact that his parents, Juan Reyes and María Jesús Rivas, made the procedure before the civil registry with that name and later with the name Refugio in the parish registry. As was the custom of the time, the name recorded in the parish records was taken into account.
Víctor Manuel Villegas tried to reconstruct the architect's biography in his book Arquitectura de Refugio Reyes, in which he took up the notes of Refugio Reyes himself in the form of memoirs, under the nickname "Notas de los años que llevo de vida" or "Note de los años que hé pasado" (sic) ("Notes of the years I have been alive" or "Note of the years I have passed"). In these notes, all the years of the architect's life are gathered without interruption; however, since it is a very irregular log, there are some data that do not appear or are incomplete.
For Refugio Reyes the most important events of his childhood, considering that he was born in 1862, were the births of his sisters Goya in 1867, Felipa in 1871Refugio Reyes refers to his younger sisters as Goyita and Felipita. and Leona in 1872. Another of the events he notes in his chronology was his transfer to a hospice in Guadalupe, Zacatecas, in 1871. He also noted in his own words the Zacatecas War of March 2, 1873, which appears among his notes under the name "Guerra de Rocha" (Rocha's War). Between the ages of eleven and fourteen he made notes on political and military events related to the president of that time, Porfirio Díaz.
His childhood was precarious, dominated by uncertainty. His house had only one room. He had to travel on foot to the municipality of Guadalupe from Sauceda de la Borda, his hometown. Right there, in Guadalupe, there was a Franciscan convent where he began to study. His friends called him Cuco, and he seemed happy; however, his parents did not agree that he should continue studying and, for a time, he returned to Sauceda to support his family financially. Brother Alfonso from the convent insisted on the importance of Refugio continuing his studies, so he made a deal with his parents: they would get him a job with the promise that the salary would be given to them in full. The job they got him was as a mason's helper, and the Franciscans also sent beans and corn to his family.
In the Franciscan school Refugio felt as if he were with his family; there he learned to read, write and some Latin. Reyes would always return to the Guadalupe convent, even while living in Aguascalientes, whenever he could, because, in addition to the bond he had with the convent, he was in charge of the remodeling and construction of the church tower.
Family life Refugio Reyes married twice. The first time on September 19, 1882, at the age of twenty, with Gregoria Palomino, widowed shortly after; with her he had his first daughter, Mercedes, in 1882. He remarried Felipa López in 1890. In his second marriage he had five children: Alfonso (August 2, 1892); Jesusa (June 6), who died the same day of her birth; Esteban (May 9, 1896); Refugio (December 9, 1900) and Eva (September 17, 1907). The name of his second to last son, Refugio, appears in the lists of his constructions and was the one who followed in his father's footsteps.
As Esther Romo Reyes, Refugio's granddaughter, points out, the family was characterized for having worked in the construction trade, since Juan Reyes, father of the architect emeritus, also worked as a stonemason, as well as Timoteo López, who was his father-in-law.
Historical context During the period in which Refugio Reyes was born, diverse social, cultural and political events took place in Mexico and the rest of the world. On the aesthetic level, the second half of the 19th century brought about various stylistic and artistic changes, as the neoclassical style declined and the neo-Gothic style emerged. There were also important political events, such as the second French intervention in Mexico. In the same year of Refugio Reyes' birth, the Battle of Puebla took place.
At the end of the 19th century, there was an important industrial development in Mexico due to the opening of the first railroad lines. In Aguascalientes, in 1895 La Gran Fundición Central Mexicana of Salomón Guggenheim influenced a notable growth of the metropolitan area. The positivist model of Porfirianism boomed in the central part of the country. All these political and economic events that affected Mexico in this period had a great impact on the career of Refugio Reyes and other builders of the time. The economic and industrial growth of the state and nearby regions at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century boosted the architectural and urban development of the area. The construction of the Templo de San Antonio and other important works by Refugio Reyes coincided with the mining development of Asientos and Tepezalá, the main municipalities of Aguascalientes in terms of mining production.
The Mexican Revolution (1910-1920), an event that transformed the socio-political structure of the entire country, also has a preponderance, since the railroads of Aguascalientes were an obligatory passage for Villists, Carrancists and Huertists troops.
A revolutionary anecdote relates that in 1914, Alberto Fuentes Dávila and David G. Berlanga, tried to take the Templo de San Antonio to turn it into Legislative Palace, as retaliation to the support of the church to the troops of Victoriano Huerta; for this reason, a group of catholic women headed by Adela Douglas opposed and defended the doors of the temple with sticks and stones.
In 1925, after the Mexican Revolution, the Fundición Central Mexicana ceased to operate; this company was the main source of employment in Aguascalientes at that time, so it was also a hard blow for the streetcars, which had had a network that extended through four directions, leaving only the one that linked the main square with the railroad station.
Professional life
Career in Zacatecas In his notes, Refugio Reyes describes his participation as a laborer and assistant in the decoration of the "Templo y la Capilla de Anapoles" (sic) —Chapel of Naples—, when he was sixteen years old. Among his papers is the name of the notebook "Nuevo método para aprender a escribir con rapidez y elegancia" ("New method to learn to write quickly and elegantly"), with which he seems to have perfected his writing, since his formal education ended in the third year of primary school.
One of the first projects Refugio Reyes worked on was the construction of the Central Mexican Railroad in Zacatecas, where he learned some of the most modern techniques of the time, especially with respect to metal structures.
It is said that it was between the ages of fourteen and nineteen when he learned to write and read fluently, since he also learned about the calculation of the resistance of materials of the "works of art" on the Zacatecas Railroad. Refugio frequently asked technical questions to the engineers during this period, which favored his learning in areas that exceeded his activity in construction. The assimilation of this knowledge favored his use of iron as the main construction material, which is why it is present in each of his most important works. This determination to learn allowed him to gain the trust of one of the French contractors, who would be his liaison for the contracting in the construction of the Mercado de Zacatecas.
The first work he was commissioned to do was the "Clock Tower" of the Templo de Guadalupe, Zacatecas, in 1886, a work that stands out for its neo-baroque style and its independent character with respect to the front of the church. Reyes himself points out that the work, being a commission, was not entirely his own design. The work was finished in five months, and is considered as a rehearsal for other later works, and one that gave him a step in his career, giving way directly to the construction of the Santuario de Guadalupe, or Guadalupito, in the city of Zacatecas. In 1888, at the age of twenty-six, he built the Mercado de Zacatecas. In his memoirs, he notes that he married for the first time at the age of twenty (September 19, 1882) and was widowed on September 16, 1889, the year of the inauguration of the Market.
In the 1890s he continued his work in Zacatecas for the Franciscans, where he made the altars in the Templo de San Francisco. On October 2, 1891 he married for the second time, the same year he began the construction of the sanctuary of Father Diaz, where panels with abstract representations —reproduced in the sanctuary of the Templo de Guadalupe, Zacatecas— appear. The first statue Reyes made was a Cuauhtémoc, in 1892, inspired by the statue of Paseo de la Reforma in Mexico City. This statue is located in a building adjacent to the old Templo de la Compañía de Jesús, now the Templo y Exconvento de Santo Domingo, where the Museo Pedro Coronel is located.
Templo de Guadalupito The first work of great magnitude carried out by Refugio Reyes was the Templo de Guadalupe in the city of Zacatecas, which was known as the sanctuary of Father Diaz, after Father Jose Anastasio Diaz Lopez, or "Guadalupito". The temple was started in 1891. The temple was promoted by the recent coronation of the Virgin of Guadalupe by the Mexican Catholic Church, for which remodeling, enlargements and construction of temples whose invocation was the Guadalupana were made. Refugio Reyes was chosen, probably because he already had experience in large-scale works, and also because of the links he had with the Franciscan community, for which he had already done some works.
The work was carried out in several stages and although, in the process, Reyes changed his residence to Aguascalientes, he continued to travel once a week to Zacatecas to supervise the work. In 1897 the main arch of the presbytery was finished and the cornice was placed.
However, the work lasted for several decades. In 1939 the towers were finished. Later, the presbyter José Campos Mota called Reyes, who was 77 years old, to supervise the arrangement of the atrium, the laying of the floor and the erection of the dome; works finished in 1940.
Career in Aguascalientes