Official School of Languages (Former German School)

Santa Cruz de Tenerife · Category: Architecture · Subcategory: Civil architecture · Year: 1935 · Authors: José Blasco Robles, Rudolf Schneider

This building should be considered a reference in the general spectrum of rationalist architecture in the Canary Islands. In some way, it revolutionised construction intended for educational centres by renewing its typology in aspects such as light treatment, ventilation, and sound insulation, setting new standards for buildings that followed this purpose.

Jacob Ahlers, German consul in Santa Cruz in 1933, obtained from the newly empowered Nazi government a subsidy to create a school where children and young people of the existing German community in Tenerife could study following their country's curriculum without needing validation. To build the centre, a young Hamburg architect, Rudolf Schneider, was brought in, who was assisted in drafting the project by José Blasco. It seems that it was the Spanish architect who gave the building its true meaning, with the German collaborating only on the initial sketches.

Construction was swift: the laying of the first stone took place on Sunday, 20 January 1935, and ten months later the building was inaugurated.

The façade, clearly horizontal in tendency, is interrupted by a glazed tower of modest size, through which access to the interior is gained. Regarding the floor plan layout, Blasco converted the first bay into a corridor body for communication and classroom entrances but completely closed the façade, so this part became a kind of insulating chamber against street noise. The possible lack of lighting due to this was satisfactorily solved by giving all classrooms and other rooms onto a large interior courtyard.

The building was expropriated by the Spanish State after the Second World War, although years later it resumed the function for which it was created. In 1999, the German school moved to a new site, and this building became home to the Official School of Languages.

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