Casa de Osambela

Osambela died in the Real Felipe Fortress of Callao, where he took refuge with others in the times of José Ramón Rodil y Campillo.

Osambela's wife had to get rid of the property to pay off some debts and so, in 1854 the property passed into the hands of José de la Asunción Oquendo, who was a man of great figuration, which is why people began to call the house as the Casa de Oquendo, the name by which it is also known today.

It is currently the headquarters of the Peruvian Academy of Language and the regional office in Peru of the Organization of Ibero-American States for Education, Science and Culture.

On it the architect Héctor Velarde Bergmann points out: "Although the house was completed between 1803 and 1805 in its current appearance, its architecture is still perfectly 18th-century and bears much of the finery of Louis XVI and reminiscences of Louis XV; portal with Neoclassical pilasters with Ionic capitals with garlands, typical of the style, lowered arch in a segment of a circle, pear shaped ornaments in the form of cups with flowers, central overlap at the entrance of the three-story openings with vertical plastic continuity and little relief in the French manner.

It is notable that this sense of verticality is further accentuated by the lookout point, so Liman, which finishes off and exalts, by contrast and with such eloquence, the wide and rhythmic horizontality of the façade.

From that minaret, covered by a small dome with a Mudéjar silhouette, it seems that the first owner of the house, the Spanish banker Osambela, was observing the entrance of the galleons to Callao with a long-sight..."Its architectural style is a fusion of those that followed up to that time, highlighting the French influence of Rococo in the decoration.

The Casa de Osambela draws the attention of scholars for two peculiarities that distinguished it from the rest of the Lima constructions of the time.