Historian, writer and naturalist Jose de Viera y Clavijo (1731-1813) and the poet, writer and teacher Agustin Espinosa Garcia (1897-1939) are two of the most illustrious neighbors in the history of The Realejos. Two unrepeatable figures for the Canarian culture whose names are repeated in squares, streets and cultural and educational centers of the islands. The northern municipality still keeps standing the houses they saw born to Viera y Clavijo Y die to Agustin Espinosatwo buildings loaded with symbolism that They have neither been restored nor can they be visited today.. The acquisition and recovery of both houses continues to be a pending issue for the public administrations of the municipality, the island and the Archipelago.
Both buildings are protected with the category of Asset of Cultural Interest (BIC)but in the case of the Augustine Espinosa, is in ruins and in the phase of final disappearance. Only the first bay remains standing, the one on the façade facing the street. The colective Hispania Nostra included it in 2013 in the Red List of Spanish Cultural Heritage for considering it subject to “risk of disappearance, destruction or essential alteration of its values”. This building is collapsing little by little at number 8 of García Estrada streetwithin the area declared an Asset of Cultural Interest of the Church of Nuestra Señora del Carmen and the Plaza de San Agustín, but the existing conflict over its ownership, since the mid-60s of the 20th century, blocks recovery initiatives.
The Parliament of the Canary Islands approved in 2018 a Non-Ley Proposal to acquire, restore and open to the public the birthplace of Viera y Clavijo in Los Realejos
The member’s house Surrealist Group of Tenerife and a key figure in the insular avant-garde scene was acquired in the mid-1960s by a Dutch artist named johan william zwart, who died in 1964. After several decades of use by a royal family that claims to have a private purchase title, in the year 2000 members of that family promoted a dominion file over the house and the attached land. However, the Property Registry raised doubts and, in 2009, a resolution from the Ministry of Justice agreed with the registrar, who refused to register the assets in the name of the promoters of the aforementioned file. In 1986, the council itself had initiated another domain fileso groups like The Monday Gatheringwhich has been demanding its acquisition for more than a decade, and the Wolfgang Köhler Association they consider that the realejero Consistory could claim ownership of the house.
The Viera y Clavijo’s housefrom the end of the 17th century, was declared a historical-artistic monument of interest to the Autonomous Community of the Canary Islands in 1986 and is still in private hands today, in a good state of conservation, but with no other enhancement than a plaque attached to the façade. In March 2018, the Canarian Parliament approved a non-legal proposal for the acquisition of the property and the subsequent drafting and execution of two separate comprehensive rehabilitation projects and putting the property into use as a cultural, study and dissemination center for the figure of Viera. and Clavijo. Almost five years later, neither Viera nor Espinosa.
Declared an Asset of Cultural Interest
Both buildings have protection, they are considered Assets of Cultural Interest, but they have not been restored nor can they be visited. Collectives such as La Tertulia de los Lunes or the Wolfgang Kölher Association have spent years demanding its purchase, recovery and transformation into spaces dedicated to two of the most illustrious residents that history has given to the municipality of Los Realejos.
