Diocesan Seminary of Tafira (current ISTIC)

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria · Category: Architecture · Subcategory: Religious architecture · Year: 1942-1956 · Authors: Secundino Zuazo

The Diocesan Conciliar Seminary of the Canary Islands is one of the most important institutions of the Church in the Islands. Since its foundation in 1777, based in the Jesuit College of Las Palmas, for two centuries it was one of the most prestigious academic institutions in the Archipelago. Not only clergy but also important personalities of public and cultural life in the Canary Islands were trained in its classrooms.

After the Civil War, a new building was constructed in Tafira Baja to house the seminary. It was designed in 1942 by the renowned architect Secundino Zuazo, under the commission of the bishop of the diocese of the Canary Islands at that time, the Basque Antonio Pildain.

Zuazo proposed a huge complex to accommodate the numerous vocations of that time. The architect, exiled in Gran Canaria after the War due to his political ideas, adapted to the clear guidelines of traditional Canarian architecture: use of local materials (stone and wood) and, formally, he employed his classical conception, perceptible in the rigorous symmetry, the regularity of volumes and the measured use of openings on the façade.

The complex was inaugurated as a seminary in 1956, although it was not completed until three years later. It is currently the headquarters of the Theological Centre, which since 2003, united with the Theological Centre of Tenerife, has become the Instituto Superior de Teología de las Islas Canarias (ISTIC), part of the Tafira University Campus.

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