Architectural Description

the lighthouse

The lighthouse was built following a detailed study carried out by Telde engineer Juan de León y Castillo, who committed every detail of the construction to paper, ensuring that all aspects of the work could be completed from the plans. The site chosen for the construction was away from the dunes on a solid base of sandstone, just 2.2 m above sea level.

In the words of León y Castillo

La luz del faro “The lighthouse beam “which soars above the dunes due to its height, will have a range of visibility as far as Punta de Juan Grande to the NE, 19º East, and Punta de Taozo (Tauro) to the West, 19º NW, in an arc of 216º”. The plans of León y Castillo included the description of the site of the building: “an esplanade 35 metres wide and 36.5 long will be the site for a rectangular house with a façade of 20.5 metres facing the sea and inland, and sides measuring 19 metres. The tower, circular, whose centre will be placed on the front or façade toward the sea, shall have a minimum radius of 4.06 metres, such that the diameter shall occupy 8.12 metres of the width of this façade, leaving 6.19 metres on each side for the house”.

“The tower and the house thus form a single building that must be designed in the right proportions to create a harmonious whole. This means that the house, which forms the base of the tower, must have an elevation in proportion to its height, a circumstance that requires it to have two floors… The need for two floors, or at least their appropriateness, is recommended as an artistic criterion”.

The architectural composition is therefore based on the fusion of two main parts: the keeper’s house and the tower. The quadrangular house was designed on the principles of traditional aristocratic architecture, with a central courtyard surrounded by four richly ornamented façades in blue stone quarried from the nearby area. These principles followed stylistic trends of the time, and the lighthouse building was a typical example of the eclectic fashion of the era, combining symmetry in the openings, a façade decorated with blue quarry stone (openings finished with curved lintels noteworthy for their elongated composition reaching the upper floor cornice, skirting, fascia, cornice, corners forming a chequered pattern and torus moulding) and the use of noble materials for the finishings (pitch pine and wrought iron).

The windows and doors are trimmed with wooden carpentry and feature wooden panelling and glass. Wood is also used in the indoor stairway, ceilings and upper-level flooring. The courtyard is decorated with tiles featuring flowers and geometrical patterns. The western façade stands out for two openings on each floor that form a whole, joined by a decorative balcony on the upper floor featuring stone flooring trimmed in pitch pine in imitation of the modernist style. The main door faces north, at a higher level than the square surrounding the lighthouse, and is reached by two steps of blue quarry stone. The building provides a base for the tower and also acts as a buttress, absorbing the force of the tower. A small wharf connecting the building to the sea was built to unload materials and provisions for the lighthouse as an alternative to the expensive and difficult journey by road.

The Tower

The tower is a truncated cone rising on the south side of the building, next to the sea. It is built from blue quarry stone, in the same material used to ornament the façade of the building. The decorative stonework of the façade of the keeper’s house continues in the tower (base, fascia and cornice, and torus moulding highlighted by decorative rings in three sizes). The design, with a traditional shaft, decreases in size as it reaches the capital, which is also finished off with decorative rings and corbels.

the lighthouse