By José Arias
El Inmobiliario
The earliest buildings of Santo Domingo as we know them today date from the 1500s onward, during the splendor of the Colonial City and its walled enclosure. The first city founded in the Americas and a springboard for the conquest and colonization of the New World.
They were built in 1509, in the area that housed the shipyards, warehouses, customs house, and tax offices of the old port of Santo Domingo. They are called the Royal Shipyards.
Built of stone and brick, the Royal Shipyards also housed the first dwellings intended for the authorities of the time, in charge of managing the Port of San Diego and its warehouses intended to store the goods arriving from the Spanish Crown.
The Royal Shipyards are the oldest building of their kind still standing in Latin America. They rival in age and prestige the Royal Shipyards of Barcelona, Seville, and the Grao Shipyards in Valencia, Spain.
An important fact of great historical significance: the building complex also housed the Santo Domingo office of the Casa de la Contratación, headquartered in Seville.
Their facades were simple and unpretentious. They are considered the first stone houses of the Spanish style built in the New World.
Its construction was completed in 1541. The central nave is somewhat wider than the two adjacent ones. In the 18th century, the entrance portico with columns was added, which only opens onto the first two naves.
During that period, the Royal Shipyards were protected by the gate and the city walls, and the patrol route ran along the wall itself to the Palace of Diego Colón and descended via a ramp towards Las Damas Street. In the 17th century, the patrol route was extended beyond Santa Bárbara.
It is worth noting here the attacks by the armies of English, French, and Dutch pirates. For this reason, the security of the buildings depended on the high walls fortified with a battery of cannons that began in the Santa Bárbara neighborhood and connected to those of the Ozama Fortress.
Its reconstruction consists of several stages. The first was rebuilt in the 1970s. The second and third were carried out in 2014 and 2018.
The data on the Royal Shipyards are collected in the work “Banco Popular. Colonial Santo Domingo: Its Main Monuments. Santo Domingo: Banco Popular, 1998”.
This Bohio section will continue to offer its readers a series of stories about the first houses in Santo Domingo and its oldest neighborhoods such as San Miguel, San Lázaro, Santa Bárbara, San Antón, Calle Las Damas and those located in the center of the historic district: Arzobispo Meriño, Portes, Luperón and Mercedes.
Preserving national heritage is everyone's duty. Dominicans possess some of the earliest buildings in this part of the world; therefore, their protection and preservation is a perpetual obligation of our authorities and citizens.
