Single-family homes of Barrio Nuevo (Copy)

Santa Cruz de Tenerife · Category: Architecture · Subcategory: Civil architecture · Year: 1866-1872 · Authors: Salvador G. García, Vicente Armiño, Pedro Maffiotte

During the second half of the 19th century, the Sociedad Constructora de Edificios Urbanos, better known as La Constructora, focused mainly on building homes for the lower middle class of the city. The first group of houses for this purpose was built between 1866 and 1872, in an area still unurbanised that today comprises the area between Callao de Lima, Sabino Berthelot, Jesús Nazareno, San Clemente and Pi y Margall streets. There were approximately two hundred and fifty homes, which formed what was then called Barrio Nuevo. La Constructora had the collaboration of technicians Salvador G. García, Vicente Armiño and Pedro Maffiote to design this new area of the city growing westwards.

Barrio Nuevo marked a stage and essentially changed the course of the islands' architecture. From now on, old construction traditions were abandoned and new typologies emerged, where technical advances and better building methods offered greater comfort to the homes. Spaces were better utilised, with a healthier layout and higher rooms (now plastered on their walls). The homes were equipped with cisterns with pumps for water supply and the traditional roof tiles were replaced by flat roofs. Externally, the appearance gained greater regularity and slenderness in the ornamentation of the façades.

The domestic architecture of this period, which can still be seen in some of these streets in what is now central Santa Cruz, has two types of layouts: the first follows the traditional Canarian pattern, in an L shape, with rooms facing the façade, no more than three (entrance hall, living room and bedroom), and a courtyard, on one side of which the intercommunicating rooms follow, with entrance through a corridor open to the courtyard. The second, imported, has rooms arranged in two juxtaposed rows in the front half, with the courtyard behind, featuring the novelty of the cistern and, in the higher-category homes, a room with a toilet; something totally new for the time.

Today, most of these buildings have disappeared. Of those still standing, many have been renovated and fewer maintain their original structure intact. Barrio Nuevo was the place where this new type of architecture began, which spread to various parts of the city throughout much of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

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