Clavería y de Palacios Narciso (1869-1935)

(Madrid (Spain) 1869-Madrid (Spain) 1935)

After his studies in his hometown, Narciso Clavería y Palacios, third Count of Manila, works in renowned architectural firms such as Juan Bautista Lázaro de Diego, on projects such as the Basilica of San Vicente de Paúl (1900-1904) and the College of San Diego y San Nicolás (1903-1906), both in Madrid.
It is possibly in the early 1910s that he assumes his role as architect for the Compañía de Ferrocarriles de Madrid, Zaragoza y Alicante (MZA). Notable from this professional stage are the architectural projects he designs for new railway stations, such as that of Toledo, inaugurated in 1920, the first in neo-Mudejar style in railway architecture, and the design of the Madrid Station in Linares (Jaén), completed in 1925. Specific stylistic elements have allowed this architect to be attributed to the central pavilion of the Aranjuez station (1920-1927) and the passenger building of the same period of the Algodor station, as well as the Casa Ciriaco in Yuncos (Toledo), today a town hall.

Moreover, Narciso Clavería, a great lover of photography and particularly architectural photography, would find in the city of Toledo a perfect field for this activity, especially during the two years of railway construction. We know of more than 200 images published in Toledo. Revista Semanal de Artebetween 1918 and 1931. Toledo was not the only object of curiosity for the architect-photographer, and good proof of this are the thousands of glass plates capturing other places in Spain, acquired by the Instituto del Patrimonio Español.