The Casa Manrique-Castillo

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria · Category: Architecture · Subcategory: Civil architecture · Year: 1816-67 · Authors: Manuel Ponce de León y Falcón

This is a large sized rectangular shaped building with a back garden that runs down to street level, and partly eats into land covering the ancient Guiniguada ravine due to a realignment operation by municipal order (1868). Next to the gardens of the bordering houses is one of the few gardened areas in the district of Vegueta.

Work on the building finished in 1816, and true to typical domestic architecture style, it has two courtyards around which the rooms are situated. The main courtyard has an entrance via a fenced off hallway, is square shaped and has large wooden arches around it. The back of the courtyard opens up onto the garden.

The main façade was designed in 1847 by Manuel Ponce de León y Falcón, is on two floors and is made up of three sections in line with the symmetrical order with seven recesses. The middle section on the second floor stands out with ionic pillasters with channelled shafts, and their recesses are framed with curved gables on the sides and straight ones in the middle. However on the side sections, the gables are substituted by small entablatures above which is a romantic style molding with garlands. It is finished off by a ballustrade and pinnacles. The façade overlooking the garden was designed by Francisco de la Torre in 1867, and the recesses are padded out by simple stonework motifs and the whole piece is topped by three high gables with Baroque pinnacles and a ballustrade.

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