Pontevedra Normal School Building

Until the end of the 19th century, the women's teacher training school was located in Pontevedra in the baroque pazo of the García Flórez family (today owned by the Pontevedra Museum) and the men's teacher training school was located in the Pazo of Mugartegui, or pazo of the Counts of Fefiñáns. In the 1880s, the Pontevedra City Council acquired the property of the Munaiz family located on the Gran Vía Avenue, a building plot on an avenue that had been laid out ten years earlier. It was decided to build a new building for a school of arts and crafts which eventually housed the provincial teacher training school as well as the provincial high school at different times. In 1895, the project to build the School of Arts and Crafts was launched. The work was entrusted to the architect of the Ministry of Development (Fomento) Arturo Calvo Tomelén, who had designed buildings such as the Palace of Joaquín Sánchez de Toca Calvo (now the Brazilian Embassy in Madrid). In November 1895 Arturo Calvo completed his project. The works were awarded on 1 May 1896 to the Madrid builder García Dios. The building was built opposite the Palace of the Deputation of Pontevedra which had been inaugurated in 1890. The building was completed and inaugurated in 1901. The total cost of the project was over 260,000 pesetas. In 1903 the building was used as the Provincial High School of Pontevedra, to put an end to the numerous expenses incurred by the repairs of the old Jesuit College. The building housed the Normal Male Teachers' School at the back and the Normal Female Teachers' School at the front. Over the years, its function changed and it temporarily became the city's women's high school in the late 1960s. From the 1970s onwards it was the seat of the provincial education office. == Description ==

It is a large eclectic style building with a square ground plan and with three floors and a half basement. Initially the building had two floors and a recessed floor which later became a full third floor. The bricks, which were very fashionable at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century on the façades, came from the old brick factory of La Barca, very close to A Caeira. They can also be found on the façade of the Pontevedra bullring. The building has the peculiarity that all the windows of the four façades are twinned, except for the windows of the central bodies of the front and rear façades. On the first floor of the central body of the rear façade there is a balcony with geometric decoration with four eight-pointed stars instead of balustrades, and on the front façade there is a balcony with five floral motifs. All the windows on the first floor are crowned with geometric decoration in the centre of the lintels.The first-floor balcony door on the front façade is flanked by Ionic pilasters and crowned with a stone coat of arms of Spain, marking its institutional function. The interior of the building was successively remodelled to adapt the facilities to different uses, first educational, then administrative. == Gallery ==

File:Pontevedra capital Edificio Administrativo Diputación Pontevedra.jpg|Main façade File:Pontevedra Capital Edificio modernista de la Antigua Delegación de Educación.jpg|Main façade File:La alameda-pontevedra - panoramio (3).jpg|East side façade File:Escudo heraldico - panoramio (94).jpg|Coat of arms File:Escuela Normal Pontevedra Capital - Fachada este 2.jpg|East façade File:Escuela Normal Pontevedra Capital - Fachada trasera.jpg|Rear façade File:Escuela Normal Pontevedra Capital - Fachada oeste.jpg|West façade File:Escuela Normal Pontevedra Capital - Fachada Principal.jpg|Main façade File:Escuela Normal Pontevedra Capital - Fachada principal Detalle.jpg|Entrance == References ==