In Progress | 2011 | Culture, Education, Community | In a time of economic difficulties in Europe, several public administrations have agreed to build a set of cultural facilities, which should share the same site, common services, design, construction and operating costs.
The new building will be a superposition of a resident’s car structure, an Official Language School, a Music School, a School of the Native Language and Culture and a City Auditorium.
The chosen site is at the tip of a high residential spine. It is visible from the valley and it has spectacular views towards the mountain ridges to the north.
The various uses are stacked like bars of chalk. Each institution, that once would have occupied an entire building, still retains some of its corporeal independence. The citizens can identify the building both as an addition of single units and as a whole.
Befitting its time, the construction has been planned with simple materials, stone and stucco, and with very controlled windows and glazing. Not only can one go through the interior, but also the roofs are accessible at different heights, some of which are configured as outdoor spaces directed towards the mountain views. The Auditorium participates in this duality between the closed and the open, and alternately it opens or closes its stage towards the valley.
Again, the project is compressed, and finds its conscience in that intimacy. Unwittingly, it becomes a natural accident, a mound, a cluster or a rocky quirk.