Centro Botín, designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Renzo Piano as a permanent home for the art, cultural and educational programmes of Fundación Botín, Spain’s most important private cultural foundation, will open in Santander on Friday 23 June. This will be the first building by Renzo Piano in Spain.
The 10,285sqm. Centro Botín is located on a landmark site on Santander’s waterfront, reclaiming for the city an area formerly used as the Ferry Station car park. The building, raised above the ground, frames spectacular views of Santander and the bay and is covered with a unique surface of 270,000 ceramic discs that reflect the changing colours of sea and sky.

The building includes 2,500sqm. of exhibition galleries, a 300-seat auditorium, classrooms, work spaces, an informal restaurant called El Muelle, created by two-Michelin star chef Jesús Sánchez, a shop, and a rooftop terrace offering a new vantage point overlooking the city and the bay.
 

Iñigo Sáenz de Miera, Director General of the Fundación Botín, said today: “Building on our work in the community over the last fifty years, our vision for Centro Botín is to be one of Spain’s leading arts centres; a lively welcoming place for people to enjoy themselves, learn and become inspired, and an engine for generating economic, social and cultural wealth for the region of Cantabria and northern Spain.”

Centro Botín is set in the historic Pereda Gardens, which, as part of the development, have been completely restored and extended, in a project led by landscape designer Fernando Caruncho in collaboration with Renzo Piano Building Workshop. The gardens are now doubled in size to an area of 9.884 acres, providing a beautiful new public space, a setting for public art, and linking the city centre with the waterfront.

Centro Botín will open with three major exhibitions, Carsten Höller, Goya and works from the permanent collection of Fundación Botín. The opening will be marked by the inauguration of a permanent sculptural intervention by Cristina Iglesias.

Read more
Read less

More information

Label
Architects
Text
Renzo Piano Building Workshop, architects in collaboration with Luis Vidal + Architects (Madrid)
+ + copy Created with Sketch.
- + copy Created with Sketch.

Renzo Piano was born in Genoa, Italy, in 1937 to a family of builders. He graduated from Milan Polytechnic in 1964 and began to work with experimental lightweight structures and basic shelters. In 1971, he founded the Piano & Rogers studio and, together with Richard Rogers, won the competition for the Centre Pompidou in Paris. From the early 1970s to the 1990s, Piano collaborated with engineer Peter Rice, founding Atelier Piano & Rice in 1977. In 1981, he established the Renzo Piano Building Workshop, with offices today in Genoa, Paris and New York. Renzo Piano has been awarded the highest honors in architecture, including; the Pritzker Prize; RIBA Royal Gold Medal; Medaille d’Or, UIA; Erasmus Prize; and most recently, the Gold Medal of the AIA.

Read more
The Renzo Piano Building Workshop (RPBW) was established in 1981 by Renzo Piano with offices in Genoa, Italy and Paris, France. The practice has since expanded and now also operates from New York.

RPBW is led by 10 partners, including founder and Pritzker Prize laureate, architect Renzo Piano.

The practice permanently employs about 130 architects together with a further 30 support staff including 3D visualization artists, model makers, archivers, administrative and secretarial staff.

Their staff has a wide experience of working in multi-disciplinary teams on building projects in France, Italy and abroad.

As architects, they are involved in the projects from start to finish. They usually provide full architectural design services and consultancy services during the construction phase. Their design skills extend beyond mere architectural services. Their work also includes interior design services, town planning and urban design services, landscape design services and exhibition design services.

RPBW has successfully undertaken and completed over 140 projects around the world.

Currently, among the main projects in progress are: the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles; the École normale supérieure Paris-Saclay; the Paddington Square in London and; the Toronto Courthouse.

Major projects already completed include: the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris; the Menil Collection in Houston, Texas; the Kanak Cultural Center in Nouméa, New Caledonia; the Kansaï International Airport Terminal Building in Osaka; the Beyeler Foundation Museum in Basel; the reconstruction of the Potsdamer Platz area in Berlin; the Rome Auditorium; the New York Times Building in New York; the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco; the Chicago Art Institute expansion in Chicago, Illinois; The Shard in London; Columbia University’s Manhattanville development project in New York City; the Harvard museums in Cambridge, Massachusetts; the Intesa Sanpaolo office building in Turin, Italy; the Kimbell Art Museum expansion in Texas; the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York; the Valletta City Gate in Malta; the Stavros Niarchos Cultural Center in Athens; the Centro Botín in Santander; the New Paris Courthouse and others throughout the world.

Exhibitions of Renzo Piano and RPBW’s works have been held in many cities worldwide, including at the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 2018.
Read more
Published on: April 4, 2017
Cite: "Botín Centre by Renzo Piano will open in Santander on Friday 23 June" METALOCUS. Accessed
<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/botin-centre-renzo-piano-will-open-santander-friday-23-june> ISSN 1139-6415
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...