The Santa Cruz de Tenerife City Council celebrated the International World Heritage Day yesterday. And he did it with guided visits to the Museum of Fine Arts and the Masonic Temple. An appointment in which, in addition to knowing the paintings that the first building gathers inside, a video was shown about the Temple and it was visited from the outside to respect its current restoration process.
This building was inaugurated in 1904, although its construction took a total of 23 years. Between 1900 and 1923. It was executed according to the plans of the architect Manuel de Cámara y Cruz, but the construction management was carried out by freemasons, who left proof of their values of freedom, equality and fraternity.
A building, located on Calle San Lucas, which became the most important Canarian Masonic workshop of the 20th century due to its long history and because it contributed decisively to organizing and consolidating Masonry in the Islands, but also to disseminating culture and ideas of progress in the Tenerife and Canarian society of the time.
It is the only example of Masonic architecture that exists in Spain that survived the Franco dictatorship and one of the most important examples of Spanish civil architecture. It is, in the words of the mayor of Santa Cruz, José Manuel Bermúdez, “one of the best kept secrets in the capital.” Reason why, from the Consistory, they have proposed to take care of this area so relevant to the city, which in the opinion of the Councilor for Culture and Historical Heritage, Gladis de León, is “a jewel of Santa Cruz that had to be preserved and rehabilitated . A space that will be open to citizens and that generates a lot of interest ”.
The rehabilitation of this building, which was acquired by the City Council in 2001 and declared a Site of Cultural Interest with monument status in 2007, has a budget of 3.2 million euros, and is scheduled to be completed in 2023, the year in which that, in addition, it will be the first centenary of the completion of its construction.
During the visits, Mari Nieves Febles, architect and restorer of the temple, was present, who assured “to be before an exciting commission, because not every day you have the opportunity to work in a building with so much symbolic content, which survived by a pure miracle, already that it is believed that in the military estates of Franco’s time there were people with a more liberal character who understood that the building could not disappear ”.
For her part, the historian María Benedicto pointed out that “it is a magical building, with a symbolic content and a very important history, built with great effort on the part of the Masonic brothers. A landmark of Masonic architecture, not only in Spain, but at the European and world level. There are very few that remain ”.
