El Globo Building

Santa Cruz de Tenerife · Category: Architecture · Subcategory: Civil architecture · Year: c. 1779 · Authors: Antonio Samper

This building, located at the corner of Calle del Castillo and Calle Valentín Sanz, is one of the few examples of magnificent 18th-century civil architecture that still survives in Santa Cruz. Identical in form and concept to Casa Cumella, another property located on the same street, slightly further down, we venture that both may be the work of military engineer Antonio Samper, stationed in Tenerife at the end of the 1770s.

Framed within a traditional architectural scheme but with clear signs of having been designed under the enlightened premises of proportion and regularity, these constructions housed the wealthiest social class of the city, who benefited in that century from commercial transactions with abroad. Generally, the lower floors acted as shops and offices; the upper floors housed the residences. 

The El Globo building has three floors (a true skyscraper for its time) and large glazed windows (another luxury then). Its composition is absolutely rational and symmetrical regarding the openings on its two façades.

Despite the transformations suffered on the ground floor and in the stone surrounds of the openings which are vertically linked on each floor, the whole is of quite evident solidity and harmony. Its interior, which once had a large inner courtyard, has been highly altered by the different uses of the building throughout its history.

The building owes its name to the fact that for much of the 20th century and until 2006, it housed a textile business known as "El Globo", very popular in Santa Cruz at the time.

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