Every day, exactly at twelve o’clock, the siren of Garibai Street resounds over the rooftops of SanSebastián. For many visitors it is an unexpected roar; For a good part of the people of San Sebastián, it is an everyday wink that they have been hearing since childhood. What few know is that this sound contains almost a century and a half of history about how the city learned to measure time and protect a tradition that still today slips through traffic and terrace conversations.
From shooting gunpowder to blowing metal: solar origins
In 1879, when electricity was still a novelty and pocket watches a luxury, the geographer and soldier JosédeOtamendi presented SanSebastián with a device as ingenious as it was strident: a solar cannon. Installed in the romantic garden of the Gipuzkoa Square, the device combined a convex lens, a tow fuse, and a small bronze artillery piece. The operation seemed like magic for the time: the lens concentrated the sunlight upon reaching the local zenith—the authentic “true noon”—, lit the fuse and detonated the charge with a loud roar that could be heard from the port to the Old Town.
The shooting was not a free spectacle. In a century where public clocks were sometimes delayed by several minutes and the official time had not yet been unified throughout the country, the cannon shot served as a reliable reference: merchants knew it was time to close, sailors adjusted their nautical chronometers and the entire citizenry synchronized wall and cuckoo clocks. In addition, the City Council installed a meteorological column and a time table next to the canyon with engravings that explained the equation of time, so that anyone could learn how to convert “solar time” into “official time.”
However, the success of the invention soon collided with urban growth. The nearby homes went from seeing the canyon as a help to seeing it as an enemy of the siesta. Between petitions to the council and opinion articles in the local press, the City Council decided to dismantle the piece around 1905. That improvised silence inaugurated a small gap in the daily routine.
Photo DV
The birth of an electric voice
When the dust died down, SanSebastián was already a vibrant city: mule trams, the recently inaugurated GranCasino (today City Hall) and royal summer resorts. Commercial life moved faster and a shot of sunshine every midday suddenly seemed like an uncomfortable romanticism. However, the habit of hearing “something” at 12 was so ingrained that it was missed.
That’s where the newspaper comes into the picture. ElPuebloBasque. With a nose for news and symbols, in 1930 the editorial staff placed a electric siren on the roof of its headquarters on Calle Garibai 24. The system was simple: pressure compressor, metal trumpet and manual pressing button. Every noon an editor would go up to the roof and, with a single blast, the horn would emit a roar comparable to that of a ferry docking. The sound spread better than the cannon shot—higher, less explosive—and once again covered the function of “civil bell.”
The explosion, this time electric, was more popular than the explosion of gunpowder: it lasted barely twenty seconds and did not leave the smell of gunpowder nor did it startle the horses. The commercial district, full of watch shops, fabric stores and banking houses, adopted the touch as a lure and as an advertising instrument. It was then that the community baptized the horn with the name that has survived to this day: the The siren of Garibai Street.
From writing to watchmaking: tradition is consolidated
The Civil War interrupted many rhythms, but the siren managed to survive. The newspaper closed its headquarters in 1936 and the premises were occupied by the International Watchmaking, a business that still remains there. With a good commercial eye, the new tenants understood that selling watches alongside a prestigious sounding clock was a perfect marriage. They kept the siren going, first with a mechanical switch, then with a programmable weight clock and, since the early 1990s, with a discreet GPS-synchronized electronic system that guarantees accuracy down to the tenth of a second.
Since then, only three prolonged silences have been recorded: during the war itself, two weeks in 1967 due to an electrical breakdown and five days in 2004 during roofing works. The rest of the time, the siren sounded 365 days a year, holidays included, oblivious to fashions and reforms.
The siren of Garibai Street Experience Today
Location and logistics
The horn is located on the cornice of number 24 Garibai Street, corner with Andia, just half a minute walk from Plaza de Gipuzkoa. The building, with a late art-deco aesthetic, displays a classic sign with the legend “Relojería Internacional”. Just above the sign, a gray metallic trumpet points to the street: that is the protagonist.
The sound is heard clearly in a radius of about 500 meters. Whoever wants to live the experience with all its vibration can place themselves under the watch shop’s marquee; the echo bounces off the stone and adds a slight tremor to the stained glass. For a panoramic effect, the Boulevard or the upper half of the Plaza de Gipuzkoa offer an ideal point: there you can see the curious people startle while the locals continue with their walk.
Recommended ritual
- Arrive early: Locate yourself around 11:55, observe the trumpet and examine the thermometer clock in the garden.
- Record the test: when your cell phone reads 11:59:50, press record; the siren comes in, like a metronome, right at 12:00:00.
- Explore the origin: after the sound, cross into the garden of the Plaza de Gipuzkoa. There, to the left of the weather column, you will see the original pedestal of the solar cannon.
- Share knowledge: many visitors upload their video to networks with the tag #SirenaDeLaCalleGaribai; Add a brief note about its history and you will help keep the tradition alive.
Sound and educational heritage
In the field of acoustic ecology we talk about soundmark to describe an emblematic sound of a place, sonorous equivalent to a visual landmark. The siren of Garibai Street meets all the requirements: it is unique, recognizable and has cultural significance. Its value goes beyond the picturesque:
- Collective memory. Those who grew up in Donostia associate the siren with the lunch break, leaving school or when buying the newspaper.
- pedagogical function. Remembering the solar origin of the custom helps explain how cities were organized before time zones and telegraphy.
- Local identity. Like the bells of Big Ben or the foghorn of the port of Hamburg, this honk distinguishes SanSebastián from any other Basque city.
However, sound heritage also requires cultural sensitivity. In 2022, a group of newly arrived Ukrainian refugees mistook the sound for an air raid alarm. The City Council and several associations organized information sessions to explain the tradition, thus preventing a memory of the war from sneaking into the routine of those seeking peace.
Frequently asked questions
Why was Garibai Street chosen and not another?
In 1930, the writing of ElPuebloBasque It occupied this building, and the Boulevard-Plaza de Gipuzkoa axis was the commercial heart. The location guaranteed maximum sound coverage without reaching the fishing port, where boat sirens could create confusion.
Have you ever considered removing the horn?
In the nineties there was an attempt to replace it with an electronic carillon, but neighborhood opposition and, above all, merchant associations managed to protect the piece as an asset of intangible heritage interest.
Is there a current equivalent in other cities?
Cádiz fires an electric cannon at twelve o’clock from the Candelaria bastion, Barcelona preserves the symbolic cannon shots of Montjuïc Castle on designated festivities and Salamanca maintains the City Hall’s Mari-Diego bell for civil notices. Each city formulates in its own way the old need to ring midday.
Curiosities to impress after dinner
- The original solar cannon retains burns on the supporting stone, proof of how many times the fuse was lit.
- There is a “club of twelve” that times the siren every Thursday and has kept a handwritten record since 1962.
- During the Semana Grande festivities, the siren coexists with daytime rockets and nighttime fires without one overshadowing the other: tourists quickly learn to distinguish the prolonged metallic sound of a festive firecracker.
- The siren tone is tuned to an approximation of 440Hz; Some local musicians have recorded compositions in which the horn serves as the base note.
Conclusion
The siren of Garibai Street It is a thread that sews the Donostia of gas lanterns with that of GPS satellites: a simple, invariable and punctual sound that has accompanied the city since 1930 and that has its roots in a solar cannon from 1879. Listening to it is not just taking a jump of surprise; It is participating in a ritual that remembers how we measured time before carrying the watch in our pocket.
The next time you walk through the center at Angelus time, look up, look for the gray trumpet and let that metallic echo tell you, in twenty seconds, 145 years of specific San Sebastian stories. Because when the siren of Garibai Street, SanSebastián is back on time and invites us to do it with it.
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