Santander Maritime Club.
Santander it's a fancy city that's always wet. Its coordinates locate it stranded in a Cantabrian bay worn out by the south wind. A wind that maddens more than it blows. That push of the air and the proximity of the sea mean that there are concrete boats in its streets.
Constructions that do not sail, remain docked in the Gardens of Pereda , on the street Castelar and in tower island . They have been doing it since the world went haywire between the two world wars. Rationalist constructions that are not accessed, embarked. An architectural discourse of shapes, volumes and colors that seduces the light and gives reason to Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Y Le Corbusier , fathers of rationalist architecture. Examples of modern architecture that seeped into conservative Santander.
Walking through it is a delight, despite its irregular topography. The city sits on hills and valleys in which the architects have had to fit their designs. Steep and curved slopes that flow into the sea.
Sailing in Santander is a pleasure, in the Cantabrian and on dry land. In one and the other half there are boats. In the first they feel the waves, from the second they contemplate them. From the factories and the nautical industry come the influences that inspired the construction of a few buildings. Survivors of that great fire that reduced the city to ashes in 1941.
Santander Sailing School.
The Sardinero and the peninsula the magdalene They were the preserve of the bourgeoisie and royalty. Today there are embers of that nineteenth-century architecture. On the line of the wharf and in the expansion, the architects cast rationalist constructions. A bus stop, a fuel station , a cinema , a Sailing School , a booth of the Pilots of the port , the Royal Maritime Club , the Athenaeum and the building Siboney . Pure architectural contraband.
The architects Deogracias Mariano Lastra, Jose Enrique Marrero, Gonzalo Bringas Y Javier Gonzalez deRiancho , among others, reasoned with the environment through pure volumetric forms in which symmetries and asymmetries, balances and regularities can be guessed, lined with concrete, steel and glass. In these constructions the decoration does not exist and the beauty lies in the structure itself. Logical and useful constructions.
The San Martin bus stop.
The San Martin bus stop it is camouflaged everyday architecture. Beneath its elliptical roof there is a shade shelter that protects from the wind and covers from the rain. An intelligent stop that continues to fulfill its routine function. Luckily the old gas station in Jardines de Pereda hasn't had it, converted into an open-air cafe next to the Booty Center . The pumps are history, but the iconic cantilever remains.
Siboney Building, Santander.
The siboney building it is the flagship of Cantabrian rationalism. A white ship in the castelar street which owes its name to an American ocean liner that made the Santander-Cuba route. The experts in the matter are recreated in the torn windows, the rounded outer edges and the colossal scale of this building.
The rest we look at the porthole holes of the upper towers. Cabins instead of rooms, we imagine that this building anchored on the seafront has.
Cinema Los Angeles, Santander
The decorative and formal subtlety makes the Royal Maritime Club of Santander pass unnoticed among the forest of bare masts of docked sports boats. Concrete piles raise the building above the sea and a short walkway joins it to the breakwater of small port.
Its partners embark on an asymmetrical, white building with a bipolar façade. Urban the one that looks at the city, transparent the one that observes the sea. Large horizontal windows, framed in red, and open terraces from which it is not possible to see the island of the Tower.
This cliff, in front of the beaches of the magdalene Y the Bikinis , it is occupied by a sailing school. A hidden gem with a large balcony as a command bridge that is discovered aboard a boat from of the prop , across the bay.
The skippers of ships and the pilots of pleasure boats are nobody without the pilots of the port, controllers of the sea who with their temperance guide the ships to a safe port. His work goes unnoticed, just like his office.** A small pavilion reminiscent of a ship** and whose attached benches the neighbors have turned into an impromptu meeting point.
Booth for the pilots of the port in Santander
More official are the meetings in the Athenaeum , inside the city and uphill. A curved building on a hilly street with geometric and symmetrical openings on the façade. Cover in which the letters that form the word ATENEO stand out.
The same thing happens to cinema los angeles . The neon of the marquee is its hallmark. A poster that evokes Broadway by chance. The “Los Angeles” sign corresponds to the handwritten reply of the owner, who named the cinema after his wife. Cinema in which movies are still shown. Many new and few old.
The same thing happens with the buildings of the city, they are built more new than modern. As long as its concrete ships do not weigh anchor, Santander, in addition to being elegant and humid, will retain traces of modernity.
WHERE TO SLEEP
Urban Suite Santander (Cardinal Cisneros, 8)
To rest the rationalist hangover, nothing like this luminous small hotel with seven rooms in the center.
WHERE TO EAT
Cigalena Winery (Daoiz and Velarde, 19)
From 1949, a classic to start the route. Wine lovers paradise.
Canadian (Gomez Orena, 15)
Here began the adventure of Paco Quirós. And also his cheesecake...
the Bombi (Casimiro Sainz, 15)
Wherever you go... you'll end up here. And you will never forget his tail. Great atmosphere and good fish.
The Pump House (Gamazo, s/n)
seafood cuisine in a historic building next to the port pilot house.
WHERE TO BUY
Domestic
You can buy the illustrations of this report in this decoration shop that would delight Le Corbusier.
WHERE TO HAVE A DRINK
moondog bar (Sun Street, 52)
Modernity for all audiences.
*This report was published in the number 140 of the Condé Nast Traveler Magazine (July and August). Subscribe to the printed edition (11 printed issues and a digital version for €24.75, by calling 902 53 55 57 or from our website). The issue of Condé Nast Traveler for July and August is available in ** its digital version to enjoy it on your preferred device. **