Chapel of the La Pureza de María School

Santa Cruz de Tenerife · Category: Architecture · Subcategory: Religious architecture · Year: 1947 · Authors: Domingo Pisaca Burgada

The La Pureza de María community arrived in Tenerife in the early 1920s. The nuns first settled in the north of the island, and shortly afterwards, in 1922, moved to Santa Cruz. In the capital, they initially settled in a house located at the corner of Galcerán and Miraflores streets; somewhat later, they moved to what is now Casa Pisaca, in the heart of the Toscal neighbourhood. Finally, in 1925, the plot where their main centre is located today, on the ascent to Quisisana, was acquired. Here, through a project by Domingo Pisaca, a building was erected to house the girls' school, a boarding school, and a convent.

In 1947 Pisaca also designed the chapel for the complex, to be located in what were then the front gardens. On the main façade of the temple we find typical elements of regionalist architecture, interspersed with others of a Baroque tendency, a very fashionable mix at that time in the islands' architecture. Notable are the two opposing volutes, the bulky moulding surrounding the door, the spheres at the top, and the play of textures between the masonry with artificial stone and the plaster.

Inside, in the long and wide nave, Pisaca devised curious continuous boxes and a choir that, in its form, resembles more a theatre than a church. The presbytery is conceived as a beautiful hemicycle endowed with zenithal light through the use of glass brick.

Over the years, the La Pureza school has expanded its facilities through the acquisition of adjoining properties: first, in 1968, a neighbouring house that gave way to a new pavilion for classrooms; and in this century, the magnificent Villa Clara and Villa Petra, both historic buildings.

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