Central Police Station "Super police station"

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria · Category: Architecture · Subcategory: Civil architecture · Year: 1994-97 · Authors: Ramón Chesa, Javier Mena

Ramón Chesa and Javier Mena are the authors of a number of buildings which have become icons in the city of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. Their project to build the Canary Central Police Station (1994-1997) transformed the skyline along the sea front making it one of the most modern structures of its time. It entailed a building comprising eleven floors plus three basements. This actually represented a higher building than had been envisaged for this part of town between the city centre and the sea, so the capital city's Town Hall modified the General Urban Ordenance Plan as it considered the police building as a special case. This decision caused considerable controversy with a lot of popular dissent towards this project which wasn't resolved until a full decade later. The building was undoubtedly set to change the sea front from a formalist vocation, although initial procedures started to reveal a total absence of limits in conduct on the part of the local administrations, which would become permanent from that date on. The building was distributed in two main blocks which were different to eachother in shape, colour and materials emerging from a lower level which acts as a plinth: a cube and a semi-ellipse, reminding us of an unfurled sail, in dialogue with the sea. 

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