Banco Pastor Building

"A mythical and very well-preserved building, it's cool when they put Batman on the roof watching over the city during the comic book fair."

Kike Rey

"Today it belongs to Banco Santander. It is one of the main historic buildings on the avenue.

On the ground floor there is a work café that was the old bank branch and was adapted for this use. It is very spacious, it has different areas to work alone or in a group. Desks, bar, tables, etc.

The prices are those of any cafeteria with the additional advantage that if you are a bank customer they give you a significant discount when paying with the card."

Víctor M. Rodríguez P.

"To this day it is still known as the Banco Pastor building, despite the fact that now its name would actually be the Santander building, after the purchase by the banking entity chaired by Botín. However, if we look up we can still see the Banco Pastor sign.

The Banco Pastor Building began construction almost a century ago, in 1922, and was the tallest building in Spain until 1929. It was superseded by the Telefónica Building on Gran Vía in Madrid but still retains the recognition of being one of the first 'skyscrapers' in the country with its 38 meters and 11 floors. Although its height does not attract our attention today, the local press in the 1930s still referred to it as a 'skyscraper' and raising it was audacious at the time, since municipal planning prevented buildings from exceeding 20 meters. Furthermore, the project by Antonio Tenreiro Rodríguez (1893-1969) and Peregrín Estellés Estellés (1891-1981) represented a break with the previous architecture, in which white wooden gallery facades predominated, representative of the A Coruña port front. Fortunately, the Municipal Works Commission approved the project, not with the intention of creating a trend but as an exception "that would make the city more beautiful", thus making the Pastor the only tower in the city until the 1960s.

For the Banco Pastor building, Tenreiro and Estellés designed a solid and forceful structure that symbolized the modernity and security of a banking entity. Nothing like verticalism and stone and iron to represent that power in the Cantons, in the heart of the Pescadería neighborhood, with the port as the main driving force.

Banco Pastor takes as a reference the skyscrapers of the late 19th century of the Chicago School and English banks, adding neo-baroque elements. For many people from A Coruña it is the most American building in the city, a little piece of New York in our Marineda. It is no coincidence that, at the Comic Show held annually in A Coruña, Batman chooses to be placed at the top of its cornice, next to a logo that, even today, refuses to disappear."

Felipe Lata Raposo