The Cabildo of Gran Canaria Government Building

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria · Category: Routes · Subcategory: Rationalism route · Year: 1941 · Authors: Miguel Martín-Fernández de la Torre

This building is one of the largest examples of Spanish rationalist architecture. It was drafted by Miguel Martín-Fernández de la Torre. It had a series of projects and refurbishments, in which designs by German architect Richard E. Oppel and Eduardo Laforet were combined. There were also plans for extending one of the floors on the building, and the tower, caused by the rivalry between the Canaries' two capital cities, through to its completion during the dictatorship, during the autarchy (1941).

The use of stone and the deep setting back of the ground floor makes the structures above a synthesis of hollows from the open ended corner. Its outer fragmented tridimensionality, skewed access positioning, the play between cantilevers, glass front, etc., hint at a good artistic understanding, which, once the work got going, contradicts the use of regionalist décor on the inside, done by Juan Marques y Plácido Fleitas.

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