Santa Catalina Pier Canopy

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria · Category: Memory · Subcategory: Memory spaces · Year: 1915-1965

The canopy was conceived in August 1915 thanks to the idea of the Fomento y Turismo society which, echoing public opinion, proposed to the Port Works Board the need for a study and drafting of a project for a pavilion for the disembarkation at Santa Catalina pier of passengers from ships anchored in the bay. The author of the project was the port's chief engineer, Jaime Ramón Ramonell y Obrador, who drafted it on 27 March 1916 and in whose report he sets out the reasons that made its construction necessary. Ramonell recalls that two years earlier, in 1913, the number of passengers arriving in Las Palmas was 220,696, in addition to 247,229 crew members from various ships, totalling 467,315 people, most of whom disembarked at that pier. Until then, "the boarding and disembarkation of passengers and crew was carried out by stone steps, making it uncomfortable to step ashore due to the small size of the steps and the fact that they were often wet and slippery from the tides." It was necessary to have "a place to wait protected from the sun or rain, and to await the boats that would transfer them on board." He explains in great technical detail that "the south side of the Santa Catalina pier is used exclusively for passenger traffic, as the north side is where coal traffic takes place, involving many operations with barges and boats that make it unpleasant for travellers."

The project was approved by Royal Order on 9 May 1916 and the provisional reception of the canopy took place on 5 January 1917. The original project was divided into two sections: pavilion and steps, whose execution budgets by the administration system were 13,545.65 and 24,222.76 pesetas respectively, with a four-month execution period. The original canopy was twelve metres long by eight wide, occupying part of the pavement that the pier then had. The last world-renowned figure to use this canopy for disembarkation and subsequent boarding was former Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who in 1958 sailed as a special guest, along with other personalities, of the Greek shipowner Aristóteles Onassis aboard the yacht Christina, which did not dock at any of the piers, as it had on many previous occasions, but remained anchored in the bay.

In 2009 the Port Authority of Las Palmas - the institution previously known as the Port Works Board - inaugurated near the original location of the primitive canopy a scale reproduction in accordance with the preserved plans. The original canopy was demolished in 1965 due to the expansion and modernisation of that part of the port.

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