Cruz del Señor Electric Transformer

Santa Cruz de Tenerife · Category: Architecture · Subcategory: Industrial architecture · Year: 1938? · Authors: José Blasco Robles

This building was designed at the end of the 1930s by the architect José Blasco for the Unión Eléctrica de Canarias. Located at the corner of Turina Street and Ángel Romero Avenue, in the heart of the La Cruz del Señor neighbourhood, it is an exceptional case within rationalist architecture in the Canary Islands due to the use of the chamfer as an expressive resource.

The building had to resolve a double irreconcilable use: electric transformer and residential building. Blasco solved the issue by adapting the transformer to the corner, turning it into a tower, a true sculpture of rationalist canons, and attaching the residential building to the adjoining building. In this way, the transformer became a contribution to the city, an expressive resource, while guaranteeing the safety conditions typical of this type of installation.

Today, the building is out of use and surrounded by an urban landscape very different from when it was built, remaining out of all context.

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