Rábida High School

The history of La Rábida Institute has always been linked to the history of education in Huelva. This institute was founded in 1856 as a School of Secondary Education in the reign of Isabella II of Spain and its educational role in the society of Huelva was and is still essential. We should point out some facts as examples of its long history.

• Antonia Arrobas y Pérez, who was the first Spanish woman who officially enrolled for Secondary Education in 1871, chose this institute to do it.

• The institute accommodated King Alfonso XII when he visited Huelva in 1882.

• It was here where the first weather station in Huelva was settled. This station was managed by professors of the centre. Thanks to them, we have the first official data about the climate of Huelva.

• In the nineteenth century, the first schools for workers or professionals in Huelva were founded in this centre.

The institute has been the public, lay institution which has united Huelva the best for more than a hundred years. Students from the mountain and coast villages and the regions of El Condado, El Andévalo, and the mining area have been in this institute, which is proud that many schools in the whole of Huelva carry those former professors and students’ names. The construction of the building was not carried out at the same time as the foundation of the institute, which was allowed by a Royal Order of the 13 June 1856. Instead, we must wait until 1926, when architect José María Pérez Carasa (1889-1962) started the construction of the lofty building, which has been the headquarters of the Institute since 1933, in the Manuel Siurot Avenue. The style of the building is difficult to classify, as it has features from all the styles which were fashionable at that period – Historicism, Modernism, Neo-Mudejar, Neo-Gothic, and so on –, what makes its architecture something unique. What is indeed unmistakable is the fact that La Rábida Institute of Huelva, designed and built in a period when functionality was becoming a distinguishing mark, presented itself as the greatest example of Pérez Carasa’s works. He managed to adapt this building to the natural background of Huelva, as it opens itself and rises over and with the cabezo (‘hill’) over which it is settled.