Hotel Contemporáneo

Santa Cruz de Tenerife · Category: Architecture · Subcategory: Civil architecture · Year: 1952 · Authors: Félix Sáenz Marrero

This building, today Hotel Contemporáneo, was designed by architect Félix Sáenz Marrero in 1952 as a residential property for the developer Vicente Álvarez Cruz.

It is a clear example of the excessive development practised at that time, mid-20th century, in the main cities of the Canary Islands, promoted both by developers and the established powers.  

This area of the city had been urbanised for years with small single-storey houses. From a terraced house, it immediately transitioned to this eight-storey building. The new construction, according to the urban planning authorities of the time, " ... besides contributing to solving the housing problem, contributes to the aesthetic improvement of the city... " because "... taking into account that the building constructed opposite... the Mencey hotel...", it was understood "... that the proposed construction should be approved because it would beautify those places, hiding from the view of the occupants of said hotel the ugliness currently offered by the old and small houses built around it". 

The building f its within the architectural typology canons of regionalism that was proliferating in those years. Félix Sáenz, in one of his first works as an architect and influenced by his uncle José Enrique Marrero Regalado, continued the guidelines of the chamfer adorned with Neocanarian balconies on all floors, topped by a turret with a four-sided tiled roof. 

The side façades abandon the local trend, adopting a much more classical aesthetic, where the main characteristic is aligned with examples of the large constructions of autarkic Spain at the time (Edificio España in Madrid).

The construction of this building, located between La Rambla and Dr. Guigou street, was completed at the end of the 1950s; today, fully integrated into the environment, it operates as a hotel.

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