Many of Ponce's central buildings were erected between the late 1890s and the 1930s, when the city was the hub of the island's rum, sugar cane and shipping industries and was known as La Perla del Sur, the 'Pearl of the South.'

[6] The Ponce Creole style is characterized by wood and stucco buildings with broad columned porches and balconies and painted in the tasty pinks, peaches, and limes common to hot countries.

"[9][10][11] While Ponce had many prominent architects during this period, such as Manuel V. Domenech, Francisco Porrata-Doría, and Alfredo B. Wiechers, it was Blas Silva who distinguished himself in that he actually created a whole new architectural style.

[12] Adapting the curves of the Art Nouveau to the persistent Neo-classicism of Puerto Rico, Silva succeeded in creating a movement in architecture which broke away from the traditional forms while remaining within them.

Characteristic of the architecture to abound in Ponce contemporaneous to Castillo 34, for example, is a profusion of aplique, and eclectic combination and juxtaposition of shapes, particularly curvilinear, and a general ostentation of articulation.

Characteristic of the architecture to abound in Ponce contemporaneous to Castillo 34, is a profusion of aplique, and eclectic combination and juxtaposition of shapes, particularly curvilinear, and a general ostentation of articulation.

Calle Cristina number 70, commissioned by Ermelindo Salazar and subsequently home to the Museum of Puerto Rican Music, is another example of Ponce Creole architecture.

"This structure is one of the remaining symbols of Ponce's "Golden Period" in which land-owning families lived in the urban core and great immigrations from Europe, Latin America and the other Antilles had turned the originally small settlement into the cultural capital of Puerto Rico.

Designed by architect Blas C. Silva in 1911, the building reflects an emerging tendency to incorporate freely disparate and competing architectural motifs.

[21] The "fin de siecle" detailing and wall paintings present a material document of the 19th-century European immigration to Puerto Rico and the way of life of the landed bourgeois Criollo (Creole) class.