Login
Registered users
The architectural project of the “Vegas Altas” Convention and Exhibition Centre in Villanueva de la Serena, in the Badajoz province of Spain’s Estremadura region, blends the tangible and the symbolic. Winner of the 2008 competition, this huge smooth-angled cube rises on a vast cultivated plain (“vega” in Spanish) in a typically “ambiguous” transitional area where the town peters out into countryside. The part of the building visible from afar is only one element of the architecture. The main programme - two different-size performance halls - is partly below grade, while the above-ground cube houses the fly tower of the main concert hall, accessory functions, rehearsal rooms, offices, independent conference and exhibition spaces, and a restaurant.
The cube stands in the middle of a sunken plaza - an irregularly shaped polygon apron with sloped sides. The large “grounds” are designed to host open-air performances. An extensive sunken entrance foyer is a luminous signpost to the start of the distribution circuit to the underground halls. Inside, the main auditorium seats 800 people and has a fly tower. Designed for theatrical and classical music performances, it also doubles as a convention hall. The smaller hall for 275 does not have a fly tower and is designed for chamber music concerts, conferences and meetings. Half way above and below ground, the whole area is enlivened by contrasting features: brilliant light from the distribution foyer - enhanced by the stark whiteness of the walls - and soft, suffused lighting in the auditorium and concert halls. Here, watery-green polycarbonate panels lend to the sensation of being suspended in a soothing aquarium.
The colours, materials and shapes of the cube - a possible symbol for a cultural centre - also play on the theme of sensations and perceptions that combine with tangible features. Parallel wraps of braided plant-fibre ropes coil around the inner...
Digital
Subscription
FR-EE Mexico City International Airport and Teotihuacan
Fernando Romero
Less than an hour north of Mexico City, the city of Teotihuacán has become synonymous with pre-Colombian Mesoamerican spiritual and cosmologically or...
PHILADELPHIA MAPPING - WELL-BALANCED, QUALITY URBAN DEVELOPMENT
We return to North America to look at the city of Philadelphia, whose metropolitan area has 6 million inhabitants, making it the fifth largest city in...
A COLONIAL GRID SUSTAINS PHILADELPHIA’S CHARACTER
The Philadelphia Museum of Art is a noble neoclassical building on a remarkable site. It is both a terminus and a beginning, as it connects the urban ...
