The Gabinete Literario

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria · Category: Architecture · Subcategory: Civil architecture · Year: 1844 · Authors: Rafael Massanet y Faus, Fernando Navarro

The founding of the Gabinete Literario Society dates back to 1844. The present headquarters occupies part of the plot of land of the convent of Las Clarisas, disentailed in 1836. This was the site for the first ever theatre in the city (the Cairasco Theatre) in accordance with a project by Santiago Barry (1842). The building has three floors and is organized along two centre lines parallel to the main façade and another three parallel to calle General Bravo. The nucleous of the building is an open central area, with a hall and imperial stairway designed by Marrero Regalado in 1946, opposite the entrance, with a transparent glass ceiling. On the lower floor there meeting and games rooms, while on the second floor there is a dance hall; while finally on the top floor are the library and exhibition halls. Another access at calle General Bravo is the site for the vertical communication between the three floors by stairs and a lift, quite probably the first to be fitted in the city. In the dance hall, and from an architectural point of view, there is a sense of ample space and elaborate decoration. 

The main façade, [the result of a project by architects Fernando Navarro and Rafael Massanet], is of late modernist style, and proudly looks over the Plaza de Cairasco. It is of symmetrical design with low arches on the lower floor and curve arches on the upper floors, with paired columns on the first ones, with hollows on the corners crowned by towers with a bulbous finish. The side façades have a series of narrow gaps with balconies and very simple decoration, the highlight being the viewpoint side, on calle General Bravo.

28.102968, -15.416484