The Contemporary Art Center by Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos is located in the city of Cordoba, next to the banks of the Guadalquivir river. The admiration of how spaces have been generated in the past at this city has led to a development of a building system. Based on the hexagon as a geometric pattern, the workshop rooms, exhibition halls and laboratories are arranged as a contiguous sequence of spaces.

Memory of project by Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos

Architecture nourishes itself constantly from images hidden in our memory, ideas which become sharp and clear and unexpectedly mark the beginning of a project. Perhaps this is why the echo of the hispano-islamic culture which is still latent in Cordoba has subconsciously signified more than a footnote in our proposal. In the face of the homogeneity which our global civilisation imposes in all aspects of life, the Centre of Contemporary Art aspires to interpret a different western culture, going beyond the cliché of this expression used so frequently.

Distrusting the supposed efficacy and flexibility of a neutral and universal container commonly used nowadays, let us image a building closely linked to a place and to a far memory, where every space is shaped individually, to a time which can transform itself and expand in sequences with different dimensions, uses and spatial qualities. We have always been admirers of the hidden geometric laws through which those artists, artisans and master builders of a remote islamic past were capable of creating a multiple and isotropic space within the Mosque, a building facetted with vaults and muqarna windows, permutations of ornamental motifs with lattice windows, paving and ataurique decorations, or the rules and narrative rhythms implicit in the poems and tales of Islamic tradition.

Like those literary structures which include a story within another story, within yet another… - a story without an end – we conceived the project as starting with a system, a law generated by a repeating geometric pattern, originating in a hexagonal shape, which in turn contains three different types of rooms, with 150 m², 90 m², and 60 m². Like a combinatorial game, the permutations of these three areas generate sequences of different spaces which possibly can come to create a single exhibition area.

The artists’ workshops on the ground floor and the laboratories on the upper floor are located adjacent to the exhibition halls, to the point where there is no strict difference between them: artistic works can be exhibited in the workshops while the exhibition halls can also be used as areas for artistic production. The assembly room - the black box – is designed as a stage area suitable for theatrical productions, conferences, film screenings, or even for audiovisual exhibitions.

The Centre of Contemporary Art is not a centralised organism: its centre moves from one area to another, it is everywhere. It is designed as a sequence of rooms linked to a public walkway, where the different functions of the building come together. Conceived as a crossroads and meeting place, it is a communal area for exhibitions and exchange of ideas, to view an installation, see exhibitions, visit the café, use the mediateque, wait for the start of a show in the black box, or perhaps gaze at the Guadalquivir river.

The materials will contribute to suggest the character of an art factory which pervades the project. In the interior, walls and slabs of concrete and continuous concrete floors, establish a spatial area capable of being transformed individually using different forms of intervention. A network of electrical, digital, audio and lighting infrastructure creates the possibility of multiple views and connections everywhere.

Outside, the building aspires to express itself through one material: GRC prefabricated panels that at the same time clad opaque and perforated façades, or make up the flat and sloping roofs of the halls. The industrialised concept of the system as well as the conditions of impermeability, insulation and lightness of the material, contribute to guarantee the precision and rationality of its execution but also plays a part in the combinatory concept which governs the whole project.

The facade onto the river, a true mask that protagonizes the exterior facade of the building, is conceived as a screen perforated by several polygonal openings with LED-type monochromatic maps behind them. With an appropriate computer program, video signals will generate images and texts that will be reflected on the river’s surface and enable installations specifically conceived for the place.. During the day, natural light will filter through the perforations and penetrate the interior covered walkway.

In the Centre for Contemporary Art, artists, visitors, experts, researchers and the public, will meet as in a contemporary zouk, without an obvious spatial hierarchy. It will be a centre for creative artistic processes which will link closely the architectural space with the public: an open laboratory where architecture attempts to provoke new modes of expression. Some of the most recent artistic proposals linked to the most recent technologies appear to move away from materiality and submerge themselves in a virtuality disconnected from a concrete place, but perhaps through it, disagreeing with this interpretation – which has become a commonplace – we are convinced that the building itself, the Guadalquivir river, the present and the past of Cordoba, will not simply be a casual circumstance but – as it has been for us as well – will be the start of a dialogue, agreement, or perhaps rejection. For are these not also emotions which underlie the search for all artistic expression?

Text.- Enrique Sobejano - Fuensanta Nieto.

CREDITS.-

Main Architectes.- Fuensanta Nieto y Enrique Sobejano.
Project Architectes.- Vanesa Manrique. Colaboradores: Sebastián Sasse, Beat Steuri, Carlos Ballesteros,
Mauro Herrero, Bart de Beer, Alexandra Sobral, Juan Carlos Redondo, Rocío Domínguez, Nik Wenzke, Gilta Koch, Jesús Gijón.
Communicative lighting façade.- Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos, in cooperation with realities:united.
Client.- Government of Andalucia.

Technical team.- Structure: N.B.35, S.L. (Project Structure Consultant), IDI Ingenieros, S.L.  (Construction work Structure Consultant). Mechanical Engineer: R. Úrculo Ingenieros Consultores, S.A. Arkilum S.L. (Illumination). Fire Prevention Consultant: 3i Ingeniería Industrial, S.L. Lighting Consultant: Iluminación Lledó, S.A. Site Supervision.- Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos, S.L.P. Fuensanta Nieto – Enrique Sobejano. Technical Architect: Miguel Mesas Izquierdo.
Builder.- FCC, S.A.

Date.- Project: 2006. Construction: 2008 - 2013.
Location.- Córdoba, Spain.

Competition 1st Prize. 2005.

Below making of.-

 

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Fuensanta Nieto (Madrid 1957) and Enrique Sobejano (Madrid 1957), are graduated architects by the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid (ETSAM) and Master of Science in Building Design por la Graduate School of Architecture and Planning (GSAPP), Columbia University, New York (USA). Are partners of the office Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos, with headquarters in Madrid and Berlín.

Enrique Sobejano is Design Professor at the Universität der Künste Berlin (Germany) and Fuensanta Nieto Fuensanta is an Design Associate Professor in the School of Architecture at the Universidad Europea de Madrid. Both have been guest professors and lecturers at various universities and institutions within and outside Spain. From 1986 to 1991 was Director of ARQUITECTURA magazine, of Official College of Architects of Madrid.

Sobejano Nieto's work has been published in numerous magazines and books in Spanish and international, such as Casabella, METALOCUS, The Sketch, Architectural Review, Domus, Architectural Record, Detail, A + U, etc, and has been exhibited, among other places, Venice Biennale (2000, 2002, 2006) and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York (2006). They have received the National Award for Restoration of the Ministry of Culture (2008), the Nike Prize BDA (Bund Deutscher Architekten) (2010) and the Aga Khan Award for Architecture (2010).

Among his recent works include Madinat al Zahra Museum (Córdoba), Moritzburg (Germany), Colegio de San Gregorio (Valladolid) and the Conference Centres of Mérida and Zaragoza.

NIETO SOBEJANO ARQUITECTOS: http://www.nietosobejano.com

 

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