Citadel of Santiago Street

Santa Cruz de Tenerife · Category: Architecture · Subcategory: Civil architecture · Year: 1895

The citadel is a type of collective housing, generally developed on the ground floor, consisting of a certain number of independent rooms of always small dimensions, arranged on both sides of a dead-end alley, with a single access from the street, where all the dwellings share the services and the kitchen.  The presence of citadels in the urban layout of Santa Cruz was well known in the various popular neighbourhoods (El Toscal, Duggi, Los Llanos, etc.).

Since 1868 the existence of citadels in the capital can be documented, with their heyday extending from 1870 to 1914, a period in which the city welcomed significant internal immigration attracted by the economic boom produced by port traffic. 

One of the best preserved is this citadel on Santiago Street, built around 1895 by Gaspar Fernández and Miguel Fernández Flores. It is a rectangular space in which two rows of rooms of 30 to 40 square metres are arranged, facing each other along a corridor much longer than it is wide, with a single access from the outside. The street-facing façade presents the appearance of a single-storey detached house, and it is here, in the area closest to the street, where the shared services (kitchens and toilets) are located. The cobbled corridor is accessed from the entrance by means of three steps.

Of the thirty or so citadels that were once scattered throughout late 19th-century Santa Cruz, only a few survive; some in an apparent state of ruin and others, like this one on Santiago Street, restored.

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