CASAS Y NÓVOA, Fernando de - b. 1691 Santiago de Compostela, d. 1749 Santiago de Compostela

Spanish architect. He was the chief representative of Baroque architecture in Galicia. In 1711 he succeeded his teacher, Fray Gabriel de Casas, head of the works of the cloister of the cathedral of Lugo, completed in 1714. In this work and in the convent of the Capuchins in La Coruña and the church of the convent de Belvis in Santiago de Compostela classical solutions were adopted, inspired by the architecture of the sixteenth century.

From 1725, his style evolved into the purest Baroque in his masterpieces: the Chapel of Nuestra Señora de los Ojos Grandes (Our Lady of the Big Eye) in the cathedral of Lugo, and, above all, the façade of Obradoiro, of the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela.

External view

Providing the very traditional church of St James in Santiago de Compostela with a new and more dignified appearance was an ambitious building which started in 1649, but was only completed in stages. It culminated only in the 1740s in the construction of the new fa�ade. Ferdinando de Casas y N�voa was entrusted with this task.

The architect first worked on the construction of the still missing north tower which he matched with the south power built by Peña de Toro (c. 1608-1676). The construction of the new fa�ade did not start until 1738. The design required extraordinarily careful planning since it had to accommodate a variety of more or less incompatible requirements: it had to mask and protect the Romanesque Portico de la Gloria behind and so allow as much light as possible to reach it; it also had to respond to the urban structure of the city of pilgrimage and, in particular integrate with a Baroque flight of steps, the construction of which had already been started.

Ferdinando de Casas y N�voa resolved this aesthetic and technical problems in a remarkable way, retaining the dignity of a Romanesque building while providing it with a context within the Baroque city. The synthesis of old and new idioms seen here anticipates to some extent the architectural eclecticism of later centuries.

The picture shows the west fa�ade of the cathedral, the Fachada del Obradoiro, so-called because in its filigree lightness it was seen as comparable to goldsmith’s work.