Elder & Fyffes Warehouses

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria · Category: Architecture · Subcategory: Industrial architecture · Year: 1907 · Authors: Fernando Navarro, Eduardo Laforet Altolaguirre

The Fyffes house, a building that once belonged to the Port Authority, since the area where it was built was part of the Port until the early last century, is part of the history of the La Luz precinct. At the beginning of the 20th century, it functioned as a banana warehouse for the Fyffes and Elder companies, and from the 1940s it became the headquarters of the shipping agent Camilo Martinón, who acquired the building through a concession.

The property is located in the area known as El Refugio, right next to the Woermann building, and occupies the entire block of Eduardo Benot, Albareda, Pedro del Castillo Westerling and Salvador Cuyás streets. During the Martinón era, the building housed the La Naval workshops, which were dedicated to naval repairs, a drinks warehouse and the offices of various shipping agents. Martinón closed the business in 1984 and was succeeded by the shipping agent José María Ortiz, who kept his offices in the red house until 1987, when he moved to his current location.

At the end of the 19th century, the English company Naviera-Frutera FYFFES. LTD. was established in Gran Canaria, taking advantage of the strong demand for tomatoes in England during the winter, a season in which fruit was scarce in sales centres. Thus, it decided to become the promoter of the production and export of Canarian tomatoes to British markets.

Fyffes encouraged the union of the large growers by founding Fyffes, Co. Ltd., which in 1891 merged with the fruit division of Elder Dempster, from which Elder and Fyffes, Co. Ltd. was born. This connection between exporter and receiver shared the same organisation and meant for many years a monopoly difficult for Canarian exporters to break.

From a formal point of view, the building is a large volume resolved with two low lateral bodies, with flat roofs and a central space with a triple wooden and iron truss on supports. The façade has large openings with semicircular arches and side windows with lowered arches; the stonework appears in the plinth, the cornice and the rack pilasters that separate the volumes. The tall body in the bay facing the sea is later, with repeated vertical openings and marked impost and cornice lines.

The previous warehouse burned down in 1901. It is one of the few remaining examples of the warehouse front built in line with the modernisation of the city.

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