The Puente de Palo o Palastro Bridge

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria · Category: Memory · Subcategory: Memory spaces · Year: 1861-1868 · Authors: Manuel de Oraá

The Puente de Palo bridge came about in the second half of the 19th century, between 1861 and 1868, during the period in which Antonio López Botas was the city's mayor. His name features on it in an official emblem, coinciding with the building of Vegueta market. Its construction was actually down to the destruction of another bridge next to calle San Pedro, due to flooding. This earlier bridge had been built in 1579 by Martín de Benavides, the thirty seventh Governor of Gran Canaria, and Sebastián Jiménez Sánchez. Once this bridge had been knocked down, it was considered necessary to build another one to join the neighbourhoods of Triana and Vegueta. The first version of the bridge was a simple overpass straddling the Guiniguada ravine, and was narrow, allowing for vehicles to cross from one side to the other until 1970. The popular names given to the bridge are quite a mystery: the pillars were certainly of cement, while the first walkway may have been wooden so "palo” meaning stick would explain this, but the name “palastro”, meaning an iron frame according to the Royal Academy, presumibly suggests that the first wooden plank walkway was later replaced by an iron and cement frame.

[...] the Puente de Palo had several roles in its time. As a crossing point of course between Vegueta and Triana, as well as a separation between one type of food trade and craft trade around the market and the calle Mayor; and a third but not last, as an area with coffee shops, flower stalls and other establishments, and as such, a highly important meeting place and focal point for a series of related activities from a wide surrounding area. It was in fact a hot spot, full of vitality, which once disappeared has left a void that has never been filled. 

We mustn't forget that from a formal architectural point of view, its compact appearance and coloured ceramic domed roof gave it quite a significant impact in surroundings which already had other iconic buildings including the theatre and market that closed off an area, despite the ravine, which is long gone now. 

When the first titled architect, Cuando Manuel Oraá, arrived at Canarias, he decided to go around inspecting all the public works that were being done with municipal funds, raising a number of reports for the Subsecretary of the Governing Ministery in the Section of Civil Construction. For this reason he drafted another project for the reconstruction of a sheet metal and wooden bridge over pillars and buttresses, which had been modified by Royal Decree dated 14th May 1862.

The project was approved by Isabel II through the construction section at the Consultation Board of the urban police and public buildings. The estimate for these works was set at 146,184 reales and 31 céntimos. The bridge crossed the ravine at Guiniguada, joining up calle de Triana with the district of Vegueta.

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