Electric Station of García Sanabria Park

Santa Cruz de Tenerife · Category: Architecture · Subcategory: Industrial architecture · Year: 1918? · Authors: Antonio Pintor y Ocete

At the end of the second decade of the 20th century, electricity was an established reality in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. With the aim of bringing electrical supply to large expanding areas of the city, the municipal architect Antonio Pintor designed a series of transformer and supply stations in strategic locations within the urban fabric. These are simple prism-based constructions equipped with a tower from whose apex the wiring for supply departed. These are functional buildings not lacking a clear aesthetic sense framed within the eclectic style, so widely practiced at that time. 

This energy transformer station located in García Sanabria Park, at its northeast corner, very close to the famous centenary palm tree, was built years before the first clearances of the land for the park's construction. It was erected to supply electrical wiring to the surrounding area of the upper part of the El Toscal neighbourhood, which was expanding at that time.

The typology of the complex is very similar to the electric station located in the Salamanca neighbourhood. It consists of a prism base covered with curved tiles, which serves as a warehouse and machinery installation; from here rises a four-sided tower containing Modernist decorative elements and four cast iron light points. The whole is topped by a small cupola with openings through which the supply cables ran.

Currently, the station can hardly be seen due to the exuberant vegetation surrounding it, giving it an enigmatic and mysterious appearance.

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