In the old days, there were no tall buildings in Mallorca, with the obvious exception of churches, the Cathedral, towers or castles. Residential buildings in Palma de Mallorca never exceeded five storeys, or six or seven at the very most.

All that changed when a new town planner was employed by the Ajuntament de Palma in 1940, one Gabriel Alomar. He made drawings for the building shown here to be built in 1941-42. The Avenida building had a staggering ten storeys and thus became the first Mallorcan skyscraper.

During the Fifties and Sixties the building housed residential dwellings as well as the Cinema Avenidas. The movie theatre did not survive the conquest of the multi-screen complexes and was closed in the early Nineties. The building has now been renovated into an upmarket town hotel (**** Superior), the Palacio Avenida, with a coffee bar and a restaurant. The building’s renovation was subject to severe planning rules; the external structure was not permitted to be changed.

The photo was taken in Palma de Mallorca, Baleares, Spain. The date: January 14th, 2009. The time was 14:12:02.