San Bernardo Mansion

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria · Category: Architecture · Subcategory: Civil architecture · Year: 1957 · Authors: Fernando Delgado de León

Despite its youth (6 December 1957), the house of the heirs of Nicolás Díaz de Aguilar and María Lezcano-Muxica de la Rocha holds within its walls the most recent history of the Canary Islands. Since 1979, after two years with its doors closed, this residence located in Plaza de San Bernardo has been witness and setting for the birth of the Autonomous Community of the Canary Islands with the creation of the Junta de Canarias.

What until 1992 was the seat of the presidency or vice-presidency, as appropriate, of the Government of the Canary Islands, was built as a consequence of the need to open new streets in the city and to connect them.

The architect Delgado de León designed a 1300 square metre house divided into two floors and a basement, with an inner courtyard, which, like the rest of the residence, seeks to continue the tradition of typically Canarian houses.

With exterior stonework from Arucas, interior white stone from San Lorenzo, carpentry made in the workshops of master Eloy Alonso Ramírez, glass doors with Canarian motifs made in Barcelona, and finished with the family coat of arms in glass on the interior of the house and in marble on its front, the Díaz de Lezcano family inhabited the residence for two decades. [In 1979] the house was refurbished to house the headquarters of the new regional institution.

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