La Unión y El Fénix Building

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria · Category: Architecture · Subcategory: Civil architecture · Year: 1947-1952 · Authors: Secundino Zuazo

Next to San Telmo Park stands this iconic building designed by architect Secundino Zuazo in 1947 for the insurance and real estate investment company La Unión y El Fénix.

The building is a clear example of monumental architecture based on the interaction of classical principles with other renewed practical aspects of rationalist currents. Notable features of the work include its axiality, the regularity in volumes, the orderly and measured use of openings on the façade, and the mechanical synchronization between the base, the central body and its corner setbacks and, above the cornice, the upper part.

The work had a complicated completion, since in December 1950, almost finished, the structure collapsed half an hour after the 180 workers who were working there had finished their workday, so there were no personal tragedies to lament. Immediately, the building was erected again (now with much more reinforced structures) and completed in 1952 with the iconic sculpture of the Phoenix Bird, emblem of the insurance company, placed at the highest point. 

The La Unión y El Fénix property is one of Zuazo's most representative legacies in the city. The building, which was already an icon even before being finished, stood out in the mid-20th century urban landscape as the tallest structure Las Palmas had known until then.

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