Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of GraphSearch.
Concept
Ballajá Barracks
Summary
The Ballajá Barracks (Cuartel de Ballajá in Spanish) is a historic building and former military barracks located in the Ballajá section of Old San Juan, in the city of San Juan, Puerto Rico. It is located close to El Morro and its esplanade, between the Morovis, Beneficiencia and Norzagaray streets. It was built from 1854 to 1864 to house Spanish and Puerto Rican regiments. The Ballajá Barracks were the last large-scale construction project made by the Spanish Crown in the Americas.
The building has been owned by the government of Puerto Rico since 1976 and today it houses the Museum of the Americas and the Puerto Rican Academy of the Spanish Language, in addition to several businesses and institutions such as a dance school, exhibition spaces, restaurants and the State Office of Historic Conservation.
The Ballajá Barracks were built by the Spanish militia from 1854 to 1864. To build it, six blocks from the Ballajá subbarrio (in Old San Juan) were expropriated from the Dominican Order and demolished in 1853. The three-story structure was completed in 1864, occupying an area of . It could accommodate over 1,000 citizens, originally Spanish soldiers and their families. Its vast interior patio is one of the best examples of 19th-century Spanish architecture in Puerto Rico.
Other than the housing facilities, the barracks had storage rooms, kitchens, mess halls, dungeons, and horse stables.
The barracks were heavily used during the Spanish–American War near the end of the 19th century. On May 12, 1898, during the American bombing of San Juan, the fleet led by Admiral William T. Sampson damaged the northeast side of the barracks.
After the war ended, and with the change of sovereignty, the barracks became the quarters for the United States Army until 1939.
During the Second World War, the barracks were used as a military hospital, under the name of Army General Hospital of Fort Brooke. On August 31, 1944, the United States Department of War issued General Order No. 71 which renamed the hospital to Rodriguez (161st) General Hospital, in honor of Major Fernando E.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.