El Balneario

Santa Cruz de Tenerife · Category: Architecture · Subcategory: Civil architecture · Year: 1930-1946 · Authors: Domingo Pisaca Burgada

In 1928 the Santa Cruz City Council, led by its mayor García Sanabria, proposed, through the creation of a society, the construction of a facility that would allow the working classes to access a maritime site where leisure activities and water sports could be combined. The plot to house this kind of "maritime park" of the time was located on the San Andrés road, between the La Jurada quarry and the Bufadero.

In 1929 the architect Domingo Pisaca prepared the project for what from that moment would be called El Balneario. Following the guidelines of the most avant-garde architecture of the moment, the technician proposed a simple façade composition for a building with a nautical appearance (with large terraces surrounded by railings), which would function as a small hotel, where bathing would take place both on the adjacent beach and in a pool designed to be fed with seawater. Complementary facilities were also built, both for the bathers' hygiene and to house various leisure activities.

Work began in 1930, but economic difficulties and the war meant that the facility was not completed until 1946. Decades later, the original building was expanded with new complementary structures.

For years El Balneario was a very popular recreational place for a wide spectrum of Santa Cruz society. In the 1980s its facilities began to be partially closed, finally closing as a public bathing establishment in 1992. From then on, with its frontage now far from the sea due to the construction of the container platform at Muelle del Bufadero, the building has done nothing but deteriorate, presenting a lamentable appearance today.

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