Mascareño House

Santa Cruz de Tenerife · Category: Architecture · Subcategory: Civil architecture · Year: 1935 · Authors: José Blasco Robles

This single-family home, designed by José Blasco in 1934 (completed the following year) for the owner Carmelo Mascareño, is one of the best examples of rationalist architecture in the Canary Islands. 

Blasco embraced the principles of modernity in architecture, where the structure, form, and building material had to be visible and constitute the building's aesthetic without other additions. Functional requirements conditioned the arrangement of the built volumes. The rational organisation of the interior came to determine the very shape of the construction.

Initially, the building was surrounded by dense vegetation and years later the house was hidden by a high wall, becoming completely unnoticed. Later, already with tall buildings around it and abandoned to its fate, this interesting rationalist work reached an alarming state of ruin. In 2018, the architectural firm Amigó Machado Arricivita Arquitectos submitted a rehabilitation project for this important heritage to the City Council, restoring the building to its full splendour. The municipal corporation plans to convert it into a Youth Centre, the second the municipality will have after Casa Lázaro in El Toscal.  

The Mascareño House is one of the few buildings in the province included in DOCOMOMO (Documentation and Conservation of Modern Movement Heritage), an institution that values and safeguards the architectural heritage of the Modern Movement.

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