He Auditorium of Tenerife Adán Martín celebrates this month 20 years of historysince September 26, 2003 when the official inauguration of the space designed by the renowned Valencian architect took place Santiago Calatrava and that has been a before and after for the culture of Tenerife, also becoming one of the emblems most unique in the city and the Island, and one of the most modern in the Canary Islands.
But the journey to achieve a building of these characteristics in Tenerife has been long and complex, dating back to the 1970s, when the local Tenerife press published the first demands to build a conference and exhibition palace with a function that included that of an auditorium.
“We spent 25 years making the decision about where it would be placed. In the 70s, the possibility of putting it in the area of the Conservatory and the Canary Islands School of Actors was first considered, then there was talk of where the Gran Tarajal institute is now, but Adán Martín and Manuel Hermoso had in their heads, since 1983, that “They entered the City Hall of Santa Cruz, which had to go next to the sea,” recalls Dulce start of the works, their development and completion.
“In fact,” he continues explaining, “Adan Martín was an Urban Planning councilor in Santa Cruz and in the first PGO of democracy he put a little drawing of the Sydney Opera next to the sea and since he arrived at the Cabildo in 1987 he was looking for which architect “I could make an emblem similar to what the opera had meant for Sidney.” And this is how his brother, the renowned architect Fernando Menis, who had seen a Calatrava exhibition in Barcelona, “called Adan and told him that there was an architect who was also an engineer who is doing some very interesting things that he believed he would enjoy.” would be interested. Then, Adan took advantage of one of the trips to Barcelona and fell in love with Calatrava’s work and there they began to negotiate with him.”
Thus, it would be in 1990 when Santiago Calatrava would be commissioned to write the preliminary study of the project. In 1991, the preliminary project for the Auditorium of Tenerife was publicly presented and the model prepared by the architect was known, a moment that Xerach also remembers, since, although she was not yet a councilor, she was already in the Cabildo as an intern.
At first, the building was planned to be located at the beginning of Tres de Mayo Avenue, but in 1996 the change of location to the Castillo Negro area was approved. “The work began on a plot that was below the Palace of Justice, because Puertos did not give us authorization to do it facing the sea, which was the city’s illusion and as contemplated in the PGO. And we had already started the work, done the clearing, and suddenly there was an agreement with the Port Authority and we decided to change the plot, but at that time it was a very difficult decision because the work had already started and we knew that it was going to increase. the price, because the land we were on was not the same as next to the sea,” explains Xerach.
In fact, he points out that “that meant that we had to do the largest piloting in Spain so far, we had to go to 42 meters deep in the sea to be able to support the Auditorium in basalt.”
Thus, the works would finally begin in 1997 and continued until 2003, along a path that was full of complexities. “All the ones in the world,” says Dulce Xerach. “On the Island it was the first major public infrastructure work that was done and there we all learned, with the problems that we encountered in the Auditorium, of all kinds. That was a learning experience to later be able to tackle many other works, such as the TEA, which was already a perfect file and without problems from start to finish. But we had it very clear, that Cabildo of Adán Martín, because it was his idea, which was what had to be done. How could we not have an Auditorium in Tenerife that was significant, that was a hallmark. We had to move forward,” she says.
For example, at the beginning “there was not going to be a parking lot, a plaza, or an opera, and in the end they were built, so the building’s budget went up, but because its functions were expanded.” The final figure for the cost of the work was 72.3 million.
Furthermore, he continues, “we brought in two or three external consultants to make sure the acoustics were right, because the shape of the room is not conventional at all, there were a lot of discussions about whether it was going to sound good or not.” “And for each of those decisions we spoke with the music board, with the musicians of the orchestra, with the citizen commission of the auditorium, with Santa Cruz media… I think it was the most public and transparent work that I remember,” he adds.
Regarding the relationship with Calatrava, Dulce Xerach affirms that “with me and with Adán he was always very correct and very understanding, because we asked for the changes. It is true that he always came to the Island angry, but then he softened and then he said yes to the changes. It was a complex relationship, but for me it wasn’t bad. As much as some may criticize him, he has just built the main pavilion of the Dubai Expo, and inaugurated one of the most important churches in New York, he built the station in the space of the twin towers… “
And finally in 2003 the moment of the inauguration would arrive, which had two stages: the first in April, “when the chamber room and the entire outdoor plaza were finished and then we had a partial inauguration and a Chamber cycle called ABC was created. ”, he points out. “And I don’t know who thought of putting up a scaffolding and throwing a bottle of champagne as if it were a ship, because it was my turn and the bottle didn’t break… And on the third time it finally broke, with the square full of people, because it was one of those days of excitement in which Santa Cruz finally opened a little bit to the sea and people could reach the sea without having to go through the port. And the following year the murgas made many parodies about that moment,” he recalls.
Meanwhile, “the symphony hall, the big one, was already finished in April, but it lacked stage equipment and thousands of adjustments that had to be made and with experts, because we were very afraid of making mistakes, each decision was very hard to make.” Therefore, the official inauguration would be in September of that same year, and would be attended by the then Prince of Asturias, Don Felipe de Borbón, today King of Spain.
And, since then, in these 20 years, the Auditorium has hosted thousands of artistic shows of the highest national and international level and its modern profile with the Atlantic Sea behind it has made it a hallmark of the Island, changing the landscape of Santa Cruz.
In commemoration of this 20th anniversary, a great concert has been organized in the Auditorium that evokes the inaugural concert in 2003, with Víctor Pablo Pérez at the helm, and which has had two performances: the first took place yesterday and the second will be today.
Adam Martin
“If I went back I wouldn’t change anything, it was an amazing experience, suddenly going from a local administration to being at the level of the large European administrations, which were building world-class infrastructure, and we reached that level in a short time. , for what Tenerife was at that time. And everything could not have been without Adán Martín, the level that the Auditorium had, the quality, because he sees that he took a risk with the Auditorium. It was a qualitative leap. In culture, it represented a before and after, totally,” concludes Dulce Xerach.
So much so that the plenary session of the Cabildo unanimously approved in 2011 to change the name of the building to Auditorio de Tenerife Adán Martín, who died in October 2010.
