Military Government

Santa Cruz de Tenerife · Category: Architecture · Subcategory: Military architecture · Year: 1931 · Authors: José Rodrigo Vallabriga

The Military Government was installed for a long period in the now disappeared Castillo de San Cristóbal, on the site now occupied by Plaza de España. The old fortification had become, since the second half of the 19th century, an obstacle to the urban renewal of the sector adjacent to the port and therefore to the entrance to the city, so the City Council sought an opportunity for its removal. It was under the mayoralty of García Sanabria, already in 1926, when the castle's site, owned by the military, was exchanged for another municipal property located near the Captaincy. The new Military Government was built in this place according to the plans of José Rodrigo Vallabriga.

The building was completed in 1931, featuring at that time a splendid republican coat of arms made of basaltic stone and placed as a large sculpture on its front. When this element was dismantled for political reasons a few years later, the whole ensemble was impoverished and the configuration of the central body of the façade lost its reason for being. The interior of the building contains a nobility of forms in its most representative sectors, such as the splendid hall and the imperial staircase, to which a detailed study of the light that this space needs contributes.

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