Arrieta, Pedro de (1691–1738)

Pedro de Arrieta (fl. 1691–d. 15 December 1738), Mexican architect. Born in Real de Minas, Pachuca, Arrieta passed the examination to become a master architect in Mexico City in 1691. Four years later he supervised the buildings of the Inquisition, and in 1720 he became maestro mayor de la catedral y del real palacio, the highest rank to which an architect in New Spain could aspire. Among the many public and private buildings ascribed to him are the Basilica of Guadalupe (1695–1709); the remodeling of the Jesuit church of the Profesa, contracted in 1714 and completed in 1720; and the Palace of the Inquisition with its peculiar suspended arches (1733–1737). His work is classical in that he insisted on the use of columns and rejected the surface movement of the salomonic baroque with its characteristic spiral columns. Also characteristic of Arrieta's buildings are polygonal arches and narrative reliefs.

See alsoArchitecture: Architecture to 1900 .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Manuel Toussaint, Colonial Art in Mexico (1967).

Heinrich Berlin, "Three Master Architects in New Spain," in Hispanic American Historical Review 27 (1947): 375-384.

María Concepción Amerlinck, "Pedro de Arrieta, su origen y testamento," in Monumentos históricos 6 (1981): 27-32.

Additional Bibliography

Fernández García, Martha. El Palacio de la Escuela de Medicina. Mexico City: Facultad de Medicina, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1994.

                                    Clara Bargellini