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Trujillo’s Casonas Antiguas (Antique Homes)

by Jessie Kwak | 9 January 2010 2 Comments

We’ve been living on the outskirts of Peru’s third largest city for a few weeks now, and although we go into Trujillo to teach, Fairmail’s office is in the suburbs. So we don’t ever have to really go into Trujillo.

Pizarro, Trujillo's main shopping street

In Av. Pizarro the colonial buildings are only painted halfway up.

It’s big, and noisy. There are taxis honking, and cars veering to hit you, and it can be smelly, smoggy, and crowded. But yet….

Trujillo’s starting to grow on me. We’ve made a few trips in to see the old Colonial and Republican houses, the Casonas Antiguas, and I’ve become fascinated by the old city. Some cities tear down their history and replace it with condos (Seattle), some enshrine it by sealing off old homes and turning them into museums. Trujillo lives and works in its history.

You can see the history, painted on in thick layers that crack and peel, revealing intriguing glimpses of the past.

In Caja Nuestra Gente on Independencia 527, for example, although it’s the working offices of a bank you can walk through the centuries-old doorway and see frescoes painted on the wall, cracked but preserved.

Overlapping frescoes at Caja Nuestra Gente in Trujillo

Overlapping frescoes at Caja Nuestra Gente in Trujillo

Inside, the stuccoed and painted walls were replastered several times, and they have been restored as much as possible so that you can see the changing styles over the years—Grandmother had a preference for geometry, but the granddaughter prefers a simpler floral pattern.

Bankers in business suits bustle through on their way to lunch break, and customers wait in hundred-year-old rooms beneath antique cornices.

The courtyard of Palacio Iturregui

The Palacio Iturregui, now an exclusive club

Just up the road at 630 Independencia is Casa Ganoza Chopitea, which must have been stunning to see when it was at its peak. Its entire front would have been painted with a black and terracotta mudejar geometric design, only a few patches of which remain. The paintings on the facade are still mostly preserved—lovely pastel renderings of a feminine pair—and two lions perch high above the massive black doors.

The more I learn about these houses the more I want to know. Who lived there originally? Who sat on that windowsill? In my wanderings on the internet trying to find out more I came across this blog: Truxillo Daily Photo by a resident named Guice. She has some amazing photos of Trujillo’s old buildings and life there in general, and she documents her city with a curiosity that is gentle, playful, and lovely.

Slowly, I’m beginning to understand what it is she sees.

 

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Written by Jessie Kwak

I am a farm girl who moved to the big city, and then just kept right on moving. I love camping, hoppy beer, and good conversations. See all posts by Jessie Kwak

2 Comments »

  • rafael flores jimeno said:

    Good pictures of my city.
    The House de la Emancipacion in Pizarro street also know as The House Rosell Urquiga. My grandmother Maria Rosell Urquiaga was born in that house. This house was in the family from 1790 until 1944. The first Urquiaga was Tiburcio de urquiaga y Aguirre a menber of the colonial municipality.The other Urquiaga’s house is the one in the Main Square and was the property of the urquiagas from 1806 until 1972.These two houses were from the same family due to intermarriage between close relatives.

    The houses that are funtioning the reaturants El Mochica and the next one the restaurant Rustica are still property of the Jimeno Family since 1858. The first jimeno owner of the house was my great grandfather, a lawyer Francisco Jimeno y Quevedo In the house Bolivar 446 (Rustica), I was born.

    Best wishes,

    Rafael Flores Jimeno MFT
    Santa Rosa, California.

    # 23 March 2010 at 2:02 pm
  • Robert Kittilson said:

    Thank you Rafael, it is a beautiful city and a rare gem in the middle of a parched landscape.

    # 24 March 2010 at 5:26 pm

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