C/ General SanJurjo 20, Ramales de la Victoria (39800), Cantabria. Map
Industrial building
We can include the Trefilerías y Derivados SA building in the stream of regionalist-industrialism. These traits are reflected in the windows arches, the corners marked with masonry, the symmetry of volumes and especially in the large central crenellated tower. We are of course referring to the original building part, located in the south area easily differentiated from the broader sectors from the 60s. These other volumes are distinguished by their more practical style, the hand of the engineer is percieved, who seeks only the fitness for use and not aesthetics, through simple shapes, saw-toothed roof and straight lines. Anyway, we cannot say that the old part of the factory was designed by an architect, because the time of construction and the use, make it perfectly possible that it would have been built by an engineer. With the exception of the small expansion of the warehoue, in the south, by the architect Fernando Cuerno Cabrero.
The most interesting area from an architectural point of view is the original; the tower and the gabled arms built in the 20s.Not only for that; as it is reflected in the historical records, and there is visible evidence, the main reason of the location of this factory is to take benefit from the energy of the river Gandara, and as many other industrial buildings of the same era, the building has a group of turbines that there are under the north body, fed by the channel that emerges at 1 km upstream. This adds value to the building, interesting by itself.
