Duque de Santa Elena Building

Santa Cruz de Tenerife · Category: Architecture · Subcategory: Civil architecture · Year: 1986 · Authors: Felipe Artengo Rufino, Fernando Martín Menis, José María Rodríguez-Pastrana

This imposing building, located in one of the most important areas of the urban fabric of Santa Cruz, was designed in 1983 by architects Felipe Artengo, Fernando Martín Menis and José María Rodríguez-Pastrana. It occupies a large plot that once housed some old buildings with strong roots in this part of La Marina street.

The building we see today is a balanced compendium of bold and prudent solutions. The boldness is seen in the way the large volume to be filled is approached and in how the different openings are distributed on the façade: rounded balconies on the corner, rectangular windows with awnings on the fronts, upper cantilevers and large porticos. The prudence is observed in the uniformity of the materials and in the well-thought-out interior layout, where residences, offices and commercial premises are combined, with very ingenious access through a simple and very effective system of corridors that connect the different spaces according to their function.

The exterior of the building has a very particular appearance given by the attractive stone cladding extracted from the Tindaya mountain in Fuerteventura. This material of extraordinary quality, both functionally and aesthetically, defines this work completed in 1986.

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