San Martín Cinema

Santa Cruz de Tenerife · Category: Architecture · Subcategory: Civil architecture · Year: 1952 · Authors: José Enrique Marrero Regalado

In 1935 the entrepreneur Ramón Baudet, dedicated to the business of cinematographic entertainment in the city, commissioned the architect Marrero Regalado to design a new multi-use venue: a cinema hall on the ground floor (which would be named "Cine Power") and residences on the upper floors. The plot where the building was to be erected was located in the heart of the El Toscal neighbourhood, on the populous San Martín street. 

Several drawings and sketches from Marrero's studio for this work are known; both with a marked rationalist sense: one, following the scheme of the Barceló Cinema in Madrid, by architect Gutiérrez Soto; and another, following the scheme of the flat façades of Mies van der Rohe.

The outbreak of the Civil War and the subsequent economic crisis caused the project for what was now called the San Martín Cinema to be postponed over the years. Finally, in 1952, almost twenty years after the original commission, the building was definitively completed.

The construction presents a façade where we can appreciate contrasting planes and clean surfaces, only altered in the centre by a vertical lattice line.

Currently, the building is municipal property, having ceased its activity as a cinema decades ago. The City Council initially allocated it to house a sports centre, but it is now in a state of waiting until a new use is assigned to it.

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