Wildpret Building

Santa Cruz de Tenerife · Category: Architecture · Subcategory: Civil architecture · Year: 1972 · Authors: Javier Díaz-Llanos, Vicente Saavedra

This building is one of the most relevant constructions of modern architecture carried out in Santa Cruz. Designed in 1968 by architects Javier Díaz-Llanos and Vicente Saavedra, it replaced an old two-storey building constructed by the Sociedad Constructora de Edificios Urbanos (Urban Building Construction Society) on the occasion of the extension of Castillo Street, back in the 1870s, where Luis Wildpret's pharmacy was located. The pharmacist's heirs commissioned the construction we see today. 

Díaz-Llanos and Saavedra conceived a work that resolves its contact with the exterior by handling prefabricated concrete panels and a geometry derived from the hexagon, solving with skill and imagination the corner meeting of two façades facing streets of very different widths (Castillo and Sabino Berthelot). The exterior composition is highly modulated by marked horizontal and vertical lines configured by the reinforced concrete pieces, clearly showing the different uses of the building: commercial, offices and housing; the latter differentiated by their greater degree of openness through terrace-gardens that project over the street on the upper levels.

Started in 1969 and completed in 1972, this building is a fortunate example of clear volumetric and spatial conception, standing out by itself within the wide architectural repertoire of the city.

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