The Provincial Savings Bank of Pontevedra (Caixa de Aforros Provincial de Pontevedra or Caixa de Pontevedra) was a Spanish

financial institution A financial institution, sometimes called a banking institution, is a business entity that provides service as an intermediary for different types of financial monetary transactions. Broadly speaking, there are three major types of financial ins ...

based in the city of

Pontevedra Pontevedra (, ) is a city in the autonomous community of Galicia (Spain), Galicia, in northwestern Spain. It is the capital of both the ''Pontevedra (comarca), Comarca'' and Province of Pontevedra, and the capital of the Rías Baixas. It is als ...

(

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

) dependent on the Provincial Council of

(''provincial deputation''), existing between 1930 and 2000.

History

It was founded in

on 12 January 1930 and started its activity on 20 January 1930. Its first president was Daniel de la Sota and its first director

Alexandre Bóveda Alexandre Bóveda Iglesias (Ourense, 7 June 1903 - executed in A Caeira, Poio, 17 August 1936), commonly known as Alexandre Bóveda, was a Spanish politician and financial officer from Galicia. He is considered one of the most important Galic ...

. After Daniel de la Sota's dismissal as president of the provincial deputation, the military man Manuel Casas Medrano took over and Alexandre Bóveda resigned. In the years of the

Second Spanish Republic The Spanish Republic (), commonly known as the Second Spanish Republic (), was the form of democratic government in Spain from 1931 to 1939. The Republic was proclaimed on 14 April 1931 after the deposition of Alfonso XIII, King Alfonso XIII. ...

, the company began to expand in the north of the

province of Pontevedra Pontevedra is a province of Spain, located in the southwestern part of the autonomous community of Galicia. It is bordered by the provinces of A Coruña, Lugo, and Ourense, the country of Portugal and the Atlantic Ocean. There is a public insti ...

, with branches in various towns. At the beginning of 1938, a purge of personnel was carried out, in accordance with the provisions of the National Defence Council. Between 1940 and 1960, the

savings banks A savings bank is a financial institution that is not run on a profit-maximizing basis, and whose original or primary purpose is collecting deposits on savings accounts that are invested on a low-risk basis and receive interest. Savings banks ha ...

underwent a period of expansion throughout Spain, under the auspices of legislative reforms. At this time, the first branches were opened in

Ponte Caldelas Ponte Caldelas is a municipality in the province of Pontevedra, in the autonomous community of Galicia, Spain. It belongs to the comarca of Pontevedra. It takes its name from an ancient bridge over the Río Caldelas. Etymology The town is more t ...

Tomiño Tomiño is a municipality in the province of Pontevedra in the autonomous community of Galicia (Spain), Galicia, in Spain. It is situated in the ''comarca'' of O Baixo Miño. It is located on the Miño River. Politics References

Munici ...

and

Caldas de Reis Caldas de Reis is a municipality in the north of the province of Pontevedra, in the autonomous community of Galicia, Spain. It belongs to the comarca of Caldas. History In Ptolemy's Tables, the town Caldas de Reis (in Galician language) appear ...

. At this stage there were clashes with the Municipal Savings Bank of Vigo over the occupation of different spaces, a situation in which the Ministry of Labour intervened. In 1944, the entity acquired a building under construction in Campolongo where it set up its headquarters, designed by the architect Emilio Quiroga Losada. The building was inaugurated in 1949 and was enlarged in the 1950s, designed by Robustiano Fernández Cochón. The building was expanded again between 1971 and 1973, with the construction of an

auditorium An auditorium is a room built to enable an audience to hear and watch performances. For movie theaters, the number of auditoriums is expressed as the number of screens. Auditoriums can be found in entertainment venues, community halls, and t ...

and various offices, which for a time housed the classrooms of the

National University of Distance Education The National Distance Education University (, UNED) is a distance learning and research university founded in 1972 and is the only university run by the government of Spain. The headquarters is located in Madrid, with campuses in all Spanish aut ...

. The

Savings bank A savings bank is a financial institution that is not run on a profit-maximizing basis, and whose original or primary purpose is collecting deposits on savings accounts that are invested on a low-risk basis and receive interest. Savings banks ha ...

has participated in the financing of public works in the city of

, such as the Youth Stadium or ''Estadio de la Juventud'' (now the Galician Sports Technification Centre) or the Pasarón Stadium, as well as the construction of various social housing units. In 1965, it built the Virgin Pilgrim Student Residence, originally intended for a Menor College, for students of the

Bachillerato The Spanish Baccalaureate (, ) is the post-16 stage of education in Spain, comparable to the A Levels in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, Highers in Scotland, the French Baccalaureate in France or the International Baccalaureate. It follows t ...

, Education and Industrial Masters (''Escuela de Maestría''). In the field of social work, the entity has sponsored sports teams such as

Pontevedra CF Pontevedra Club de Fútbol, S.A.D. is a Spanish football team in Pontevedra, in the autonomous community of Galicia. Founded on 16 October 1941 it currently plays in , holding home matches at '' Estadio Municipal de Pasarón'', with a capacity o ...

SD Teucro Sociedad Deportiva Teucro is a team handball, handball team based in Pontevedra, Galicia (Spain), Galicia, in Spain. SD Teucro currently plays (2015–16 season) in Liga ASOBAL. For sponsorship reasons the club has previously been known as ''Teu ...

. In 1980, it created the Julio Camba prize for journalism. In 1977, several conversations began to create a large Galician savings bank. Negotiations were held with Caixa Galicia, following the merger of the savings banks of A Coruña, Lugo, Santiago de Compostela and Ferrol but the refusal of the savings bank of Vigo pushed back the joint project. In the face of this diatribe, in the 1980s it carried out a phase of expansion with the opening of branches in different Galician cities and even in Madrid. In 1990, various collaborations began with the savings bank of Ourense and Vigo, culminating in the year 2000 with the merger and creation of the private entity Caixanova. The percentage of shares that corresponded to it in the new savings bank was 24%. In turn, Caixanova merged in 2010 with Gaixa Galicia, and the process resulted in the entity

Abanca ABANCA Corporación Bancaria, S.A. is a Spanish bank based in Galicia. It was created in September in 2011 following the "bankisation" of Novacaixagalicia savings bank. It operates in the autonomous communities of Galicia, Asturias and the p ...

. The new Social and Cultural Centre of the Savings Bank was inaugurated in 2006, with a wide-ranging cultural programme including poetry, literature and art workshops, exhibitions by national and international museums, plays, concerts and conferences in its auditorium. In 2010 it was renamed Centro Social y Cultural Afundación.

The building

After the demolition of the San José chapel, the building of the ''Caja de Ahorros Provincial de Pontevedra'' was built in St. Joseph's Square. This headquarters was built in three stages: the original building was begun in 1944 and became the headquarters of the Pontevedra Savings Bank in 1948. The building occupied a plot of 200 square metres in the Plaza de San José and was a stone building of noble appearance, with a ground floor and four floors, according to the project of Emilio Quiroga Losada, the municipal architect. The second section was designed as an extension along González Besada Street in 1956. This extension was designed and built by the architects Robustiano Fernández Cochón and Laureano Barreiro. The last part consisted of the execution of an annex of modern architecture with a façade on San José and Augusto García Sánchez streets, built between 1970 and 1974 by the architect Joaquín Basilio Bas. Since the renovation, the building has a large

with over 800 seats. The building was completely renovated by the architect César Portela in 2004 and inaugurated on 15 July 2006. It has a surface area of 12,000 square metres of construction and retains two stone facades, combined with an enormous glass cube on the rear facade which opens onto Avenida Augusto García Sánchez and gives it a striking modern and

avant-garde In the arts and literature, the term ''avant-garde'' ( meaning or ) identifies an experimental genre or work of art, and the artist who created it, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable ...

appearance. The building is crowned on the façade of its main entrance by a 6-metre high bronze sculpture by the sculptor Cándido Pazos, created in 2006, representing the Greek archer

Teucer In Greek mythology, Teucer (; , also Teucrus, Teucros or Teucris), was the son of King Telamon of Salamis Island and his second wife Hesione, daughter of King Laomedon of Troy. He fought alongside his half-brother, Ajax the Great, Ajax, in the ...

, the mythical founder of the city of Pontevedra. On the south façade, the

bas-reliefs Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces remain attached to a solid background of the same material. The term ''relief'' is from the Latin verb , to raise (). To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that th ...

by Xoan Piñeiro ''The Sea'' and T he Countryside have been restored. Inside the building there is a large hall that is accessed from the main entrance on Augusto González Besada Street and connects the different rooms. Five large sculptures by the sculptor Sergio Portela are strategically placed in this hall to meet their eyes. A

camellia ''Camellia'' (pronounced or ) is a genus of flowering plants in the family Theaceae. They are found in tropical and subtropical areas in East Asia, eastern and South Asia, southern Asia, from the Himalayas east to Japan and Indonesia. There are ...

garden has been installed on the terrace and in the two interior patios there is an 11-metre

waterfall A waterfall is any point in a river or stream where water flows over a vertical drop or a series of steep drops. Waterfalls also occur where meltwater drops over the edge of a tabular iceberg or ice shelf. Waterfalls can be formed in seve ...

and 15-metre high hanging gardens. In addition to an

with over 800 seats, the building has a conference room and three large exhibition halls.

Gallery

File:Pontevedra - Sede Afundación Pontevedra 1.JPG, Glass facade on Augusto García Sánchez Avenue File:Pontevedra - Sede Afundación Pontevedra 2.JPG, Glass facades in Saint Joseph Street and Augusto García Sánchez Avenue File:Pontevedra - Sede Afundación Pontevedra 3.JPG, San Jose street façade File:Pontevedra - Sede Afundación Pontevedra 5.JPG, The Greek archer Teucer crowning the building File:Pontevedra 46-02b.JPG, Bas relief The Sea File:Pontevedra 48-01b.JPG, Bas relief The Countryside File:Pontevedra-El arquero (11747495493).jpg, Greek Archer Teucer File:Centro Social Caixanova en Pontevedra.jpg, Façade of St. Joseph's Square File:Pontevedra 46-03b.jpg, Detail of one of Xoan Piñeiro's bas-reliefs and signature

References

Bibliography

* Aganzo, Carlos (2010). Ciudades con encanto: Pontevedra. El País-Aguilar. pp. 100–101. * López Torre, Rafael (2000). La Caja de Pontevedra. 1930/2000. Caja de Pontevedra.

External links