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Klaus EnglertNew Museums in SpainWith photographs by Roland Halbe. 200 pp. with 277 illus., 242x297.5 mm, hard-cover, EnglishISBN 978-3-936681-17-8Euro 69.00, sfr 108.00, £ 58.00, US$ 89.00, $A 139.00
Spanish museum architecture has experienced a marked upturnsince the 1990s, helping even small towns off the tourist beaten trackto acquire extraordinary museum buildings. This is expressed mostvisibly without a shadow of a doubt in Frank O. Gehry’s GuggenheimMuseum in Bilbao. But there are not just the international stars whohave contributed to this success. Spanish architects in particularhave designed unique museums that have changed the look ofwhole towns. One example is the Museo de Arte Contemporáneode Castilla y León in León in Castille, built by the Madrid architectsMansilla+Tuñon. Rafael Moneo, who recently completed the annexefor the Museo del Prado in Madrid is still the undisputed leading fig-ure in Spanish architecture, but in the meantime architects like Man-silla+Tuñon, who trained under Moneo, are attracting attention inter-nationally as well as in Spain, and so are young talents who have justleft architecture school and are successfully designing museums.
Spanish architects use a wide variety of formal languages. And yetthere are some characteristics that apply to them all: they have neverbeen interested in the Postmodernism games; many of them valuereinterpreting regional building traditions in a modern way; they arealso sensitive to special features of the existing topography. KennethFrampton said in this context that Spanish architecture essentiallyruns counter to the globalization tendencies that are increasingly re-ducing architectural form to a comfortable aesthetic product.
The present book, which is also suitable as a museum guide,shows that this tendency is particularly conspicuous in the new mu-seums. It confirms the world-class nature of Spanish architecture,recorded from Rafael Moneo’s early Museo Nacional de Arte Ro-mano in Mérida to Herzog & de Meuron’s new CaixaForum artgallery in Madrid.
Klaus Englert studied philosophy and German. He was academicadviser to the Zollverein development company in Essen. He hasworked for several years as free-lance culture correspondent andarchitecture critic for the Süddeutsche Zeitung, the Neue ZürcherZeitung and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Roland Halbe, whotook most of the photographs presented in this book, is one of themost sought-after architectural photographers in the world, andnearly all prestigious architects in Spain are working with him. In1995 he co-founded artur Architekturbilder Agentur GmbH in Ham-burg.
Spanish museum architecture has experienceda marked upturn since the 1990s, helping evensmall towns off the tourist beaten track to ac-quire extraordinary museum buildings. This isexpressed most visibly without a shadow of adoubt in Frank O. Gehry’s Guggenheim Muse-um in Bilbao. But there are not just the interna-tional stars who have contributed to this suc-cess. Spanish architects in particular have de-signed unique museums that have changed thelook of whole towns. One example is the Museode Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León inLeón in Castille, built by the Madrid architectsMansilla + Tuñon. Rafael Moneo, who recentlycompleted the annexe for the Museo del Pradoin Madrid is still the undisputed leading figure inSpanish architecture, but in the meantime archi-tects like Mansilla + Tuñon, who trained underMoneo, are attracting attention internationally aswell as in Spain, and so are young talents whohave just left architecture school and are suc-cessfully designing museums.
Spanish architects use a wide variety of formallanguages. And yet there are some characteris-tics that apply to them all: they have never beeninterested in the Postmodernism games; many ofthem value reinterpreting regional building tradi-tions in a modern way; they are also sensitive tospecial features of the existing topography. Ken-neth Frampton said in this context that Spanisharchitecture essentially runs counter to the glob-alization tendencies that are increasingly reduc-ing architectural form to a comfortable aestheticproduct.
The present book, which is also suitable as amuseum guide, shows that this tendency is par-ticularly conspicuous in the new museums. Itconfirms the world-class nature of Spanish ar-chitecture, recorded from Rafael Moneo’s earlyMuseo Nacional de Arte Romano in Mérida toHerzog & de Meuron’s new CaixaForum artgallery in Madrid.
Klaus Englert studied philosophy and German.He was academic adviser to the Zollverein devel-opment company in Essen. He has worked forseveral years as free-lance culture correspondentand architecture critic for the Süddeutsche Zei-tung, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung and the Frankfur-ter Allgemeine Zeitung. Roland Halbe, who tookmost of the photographs presented in this book,is one of the most sought-after architectural pho-tographers of today, and nearly all prestigious ar-chitects in Spain are working with him.
Klaus E
nglert New
Mu
seu
ms in
Sp
ain
Menges
Spanish museum architecture has experienced a marked upturn sincethe 1990s, helping even small towns off the tourist beaten track to ac-quire extraordinary museum buildings. This is expressed most visiblywithout a shadow of a doubt in Frank O. Gehry’s Guggenheim Mu-seum in Bilbao. But there are not just the international stars who havecontributed to this success. Spanish architects in particular have de-signed unique museums that have changed the look of whole towns.One example is the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y Leónin León in Castille, built by the Madrid architects Mansilla + Tuñon.Rafael Moneo, who recently completed the annexe for the Museo delPrado in Madrid is still the undisputed leading figure in Spanish archi-tecture, but in the meantime architects like Mansilla + Tuñon, whotrained under Moneo, are attracting attention internationally as wellas in Spain, and so are young talents who have just left architectureschool and are successfully designing museums.
New Museums in Spain
9 7 8 3 9 3 6 6 8 1 1 7 8
5 8 9 0 0ISBN 978-3-936681-17-8069.00 Euro
109.00 sfr058.00 £089.00 US$138.00 $A
Klaus Englert
New Museumsin Spain
with photographs by Roland Halbe
Edition Axel Menges
Contents
Architectonic attractionsRafael Moneo: Respectful extension
Victoria Acebo and Ángel Alonso, Centro de lasArtes de A Coruña, A CoruñaManuel Gallego, Museo de Belas Artes, A Coruña,Nicholas Grimshaw, Fundación Caixa Galicia, A CoruñaArata Isozaki, Domus, Casa del Hombre, A Co-ruñaAlfredo Payá, Museo de la Universidad, AlicanteParedes Pedrosa Arquitectos, Museo Arqueoló-gico, AlmeriaJavier Sáenz de Oiza, Museo Jorge Oteiza, AlzuzaJordi Garcés and Enric Sòria, Esteve and RobertTerradas, CosmoCaixa, BarcelonaArata Isozaki, CaixaForum, BarcelonaRichard Meier, Museu d’Art Contemporani deBarcelona (MACBA), BarcelonaFrank Gehry, Guggenheim Bilbao Museoa, BilbaoRafael Moneo, Museo Teatro Romano, CartagenaGuillermo Vázquez Consuegra, Museo de Arque-ología Subaquática, CartagenaMansilla +Tuñon, Museu de Belles Arts, CastellónNieto Sobejano Arquitectos, Museo y Sede Insti-tucional de Madinat al-Zahra, CórdobaChillida-Leku, HernaniRafael Moneo, Centro de Arte y Naturaleza, Fundación Beulas (CDAN), HuescaNieto Sobejano Arquitectos, Museo del Mar,Castillo de la Luz, Las Palmas de Gran CanariaMansilla+Tuñon, Museo de Arte Contemporáneode Castilla y León (MUSAC), LéonSalón del Prado – Paseo del ArteManuel Baquero, Robert Brufau and Studio BOPBAA, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, MadridHerzog & de Meuron, CaixaForum, MadridRafael Moneo, Museo Nacional del Prado, MadridJean Nouvel, Museo Nacional Centro de ArteReina Sofía (MNCARS), MadridRichard Gluckman, Museo Picasso, MálagaWolf Vostell, Museo Vostell Malpartida, Malpartidade CáceresRafael Moneo, Museo Nacional de Arte Romano,MéridaRafael Moneo, Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró, Palmade MallorcaHerzog & de Meuron, Tenerife Espacio de lasArtes (TEA), Santa Cruz de TenerifeÁlvaro Siza Vieira, Centro Galego de Arte Contem-poráneo, Santiago de CompostelaJuan Navarro Baldeweg, Museo de Altamira, Santillana del MarSantiago Calatrava, Museu de les CiènciesPríncipe Felipe, ValenciaGuillermo Vázquez Consuegra, Museo Valencianode la Ilustración y de la Modernidad (MUVIM), ValenciaJuan Carlos Arnuncio, Clara Aizpún and JavierBlanco Museo, Patio Herreriano de Arte Contem-poráneo Español, ValladolidAldo Rossi, Museo do Mar de Galicia, Vigo
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Thanks to everyone who has helped to bringthis book into being, especially the Ministeriode Cultura in Madrid.
© 2010 Edition Axel Menges, Stuttgart / LondonISBN 9783-936681-17-8
All rights reserved, especially those of translation into other languages.
Prepress: Reinhard Truckenmüller, StuttgartPrinting and binding: Everbest Printing Co., Ltd.,China
Editing: Nora Krehl-von MühlendahlDesign: Axel Menges
Architectonic attractions
In an article in the daily paper El País, the Span-ish author Julio Llamazares complains that Leónin Castile, a town with a population of barely 135 000, boasts a major museum of contempo-rary art. Llamazares is referring to MUSAC, theMuseo de Arte Contemporáneo. This institutionwas given a spectacular opening in the winter of2004 and now rivals the major art centres ofMadrid and Barcelona: »Not far from the muse-um, one of the most beautiful cathedrals in Eu-rope, which gets only a few crumbs of the exist-ing culture budget and is funded mainly by dona-tions from private citizens, is struggling to survive.These days there are actually municipalities witha museum of contemporary art, but no hospitalsor vital infrastructure. Like medieval cathedrals or20th century theatres, these museums have be-come important adverts for cities.«1
León demonstrates the decentralised culturalpolicy which has emerged in Spain over the pasttwo years. The foremost cities – Madrid andBarcelona – do retain their influence, but manysmaller cities have been catching up to a consid-erable extent. León’s acquisition of a huge muse-um for contemporary art and a modern concerthall by the Madrid architects Mansilla +Tuñonplus a modern convention centre by DominiquePerrault within such a short space of time cannotbe entirely due to the influence of head of govern-ment José Luis Zapatero, who comes from theCastilla y León region himself. The Castilian cityis trying to unite potential for progress with its his-toric heritage, making Llamazares’ provocativecriticism rather one-sided. The famous Castiliancathedral and university city of Salamanca alsowants to be remembered for more than its Romanbridge and its significant architectonic Gothic andBaroque heritage. In 2002, when the city was Eu-ropean Capital of Culture, it therefore converted aformer prison which became the Centro de Artede Salamanca (CASA). The building, which retainsits old curtain wall and even some of its cells, wasexpensively converted using EU funds. This wasthe first sign of interest in modern art in this city onthe Río Tormes, previously home only to a smalland unremarkable Art Nouveau museum. Some-thing similar was taking place in the nearby townof Valladolid. The Museo Patio Herreriano, a high-profile museum of Spanish contemporary arthoused in a converted convent, was openedthere. This temple to the Muses was also builtduring the economic boom of the millennium, witha media furore surrounding its official opening. Itwas another project dependent on substantial in-jections of cash from EU funds. For Castilla yLeón, a non-industrialised region with an under-performing economy, Spain’s entry into the EU in1986 was an opportunity to invest in culture aswell as in vital infrastructure. Unlike many muse-ums located in large cities in Germany, León’sMUSAC does not have to worry about runningcosts – the regional government pays out 5 millioneuros annually. Two million of this goes to theircollection.
Such generosity by the autonomous regionswould be unthinkable if the state’s coffers werenot well-filled. In 2007, Carmen Calvo, then minis-ter for culture, pledged an increase in the muse-ums budget of 38%. Those museums dependent
on public subsidies, at least, profit from this. Theprosperity that allows the museum budget to beincreased is due to Spain receiving more subsi-dies from the EU funds than any other memberstate. According to the most recent figures it willhave received 150 billion euros by 2013. Anotherreason for a boost in growth appeared in themid-nineties, as massive real estate speculationcaused the price of building land to shoot up by a yearly average of 15%.
To start with it was the museums in large citiesthat profited most from this – for instance the leg-endary MACBA in Barcelona, Richard Meier’s mu-seum of contemporary art, which still shines likea glowing meteorite in the dark, labyrinthine dis-trict of Raval. With a budget of 10.3 million euros,rapidly growing visitor numbers and Barcelonawell-maintained profile as a tourist destination,MACBA director Manuel Borja-Villel (who trans-ferred to the renowned Reina Sofia in Madrid inthe spring of 2008) must have felt like a Croesusamong Spanish museum directors. Finances evenallowed him to set up further exhibition spaces inthe neighbouring Capella dels Angels, a Gothicchapel dating from 1566. Borja-Villel appreciatedthe scope he had been granted, but at the sametime complained that most of the museums bene-fiting from the new funds were in major cities andin northern Spain: »Andalusia has a lively scenewith many art groups, but no art galleries tomatch. The money generally goes to the wrongplace. In the north, everything is different.«
This imbalance is exemplified by the two mon-umental museums of contemporary art present-ly being built on northern Spain’s Atlantic coast.When their models were displayed in the leg-endary New York Museum of Modern Art in anexhibition entitled »On-Site. New Architecture inSpain« in the spring of 2006, they excited interna-tional acclaim. This is the Centro de las Artes deA Coruña by the two young architects VictoriaAcebo and Ángel Alonso, a duo from Madrid whoerected a glass cube directly on the Atlantic, withits two areas, intended for art exhibitions and fordance respectively, separated in an entirely unusu-al and original construction. Once again, a Madridteam have emerged as Spain’s most sought-aftermuseum architects: Luis Mansilla und Emilio Tu-ñon are presently building the Museo de Canta-bria in Santander. This museum is morphologicallysimilar to the MUSAC, with the León museum’sunusual light shafts given a more sculptural role.Mansilla +Tuñon designed a cluster of trapezoidprisms reminiscent of the nearby Cantabrianmountain chain. The Museo Provincial de Arque-ología y Bellas Artes in Zamora, their much-ac-claimed early work, was followed by the Museode Bellas Artes in Castellón and ultimately by theMUSAC in León. Beside the Museo de Cantabria,they are presently designing the Museo de lasColecciones Reales in Madrid for the Spanish roy-al family, the Museo de la Automoción in Torrejónde la Calzada in Madrid and the Centro de ArtesVisuales – Fundación Helga de Alvear. This projectin Cáceres, the provincial capital of Extremadura,involved restoring and extending the Casa Grandeto house the extensive collection of contemporaryart belonging to Helga de Alvear, a German galleryproprietor living in Madrid. The newest project byLuis Mansilla and Emilio Tuñon is the much ac-claimed Museo Territorio de las Migraciones,
which will be located in Algeciras, at the gatewayto Africa, and will document the waves of migra-tion from the south. We can only hope that thisculture centre will be able to offset the dispro-portionate endowment of the north’s museumscene.
One region of northern Spain which has profit-ed exceptionally from the economic boom whileremaining unnoticed by myriads of tourists is thelong-underdeveloped district of Galicia. The sav-ings bank Caixa Galicia has built nine culture cen-tres in seven Galician cities, and the FundaciónPedro Barrié de la Maza has also contributed ex-tensively to Galicia’s cultural scene. This founda-tion invited Luis Mansilla and Emilio Tuñon to con-vert a bank built in 1919 into an art centre. The in-terest of this new cultural institution lies in the ten-sion between the regal façade and the modern,variable exhibition spaces. Each of the two archi-tects created very different exhibition halls – the»caja mágica« or magic box, whose height can beincreased by 4 m means of a floor which can belowered, a room with a chessboard-like patternof skylights that let in light whose intensity is con-stantly changing, and an auditorium whose seat-ing can be lifted up to the ceiling using a singlehandle. These were devices used by Mansilla+Tuñon to give the restricted available space themaximum adaptability.
Like many other art centres, the MUSAC inLeón is profiting from a museum boom that hascreated at least one new centre for modern artevery year since the nineties. The northern Span-ish regions of Galicia, the Basque Country andrich Catalonia are the main beneficiaries. It wasnot by accident that the so-called Bilbao effectwas first seen on Spain’s north coast. In Bilbaoin the Basque Country, however, the museum eu-phoria had a different environment for growth thanit did in Castile. While the MUSAC enhanced Leónand Castile’s cultural attractions enduringly, theMuseo Guggenheim was built in an unprepos-sessing city on the Río Nervión – in a cultural void.Since then, Frank O. Gehry’s titanium sculpture,confidently straddling the river, has brought culturetourists to Bilbao, who come especially to see hisexpressive architectonic creation. Bilbao’s crown-ing glory and an economic boon to the communi-ty as well, it has created a whole urban infrastruc-ture. Santiago Calatrava built the city’s airport anda bridge over the Nervión, then Norman Fosterbuilt a modern metro line, and in recent years ahotel complex by Ricardo Legorretas and a neigh-bouring shopping mall by Robert Stern have fol-lowed. In 2007, Arata Isozaki completed two strik-ing high-rise towers alongside Calatrava’s bridge.There are more important projects on the banksof the Nervión planned for the future. Rafael Mo-neo will build a university library, Carlos Ferraterwill build two apartment blocks and César Pelli theTorre Iberdrola. The adoptive Londoner Zaha Ha-did once again received the most lucrative con-tract, designing the master plan for Zorrozaurre –a townscape with a disunited appearance on a57-hectare peninsula at the mouth of the Nervión– and also the EuskoTren headquarters in nearbyDurango. Ultimately, the force behind this suddenurban abundance is the mighty New York Gug-genheim Foundation and the tireless ThomasKrens, who is occasionally responsible for motor-bike and fashion shows in Museo Guggenheim –
the price the Basques have to pay. The influenceof the Guggenheim Bilbao, however, remains im-mense, and with an annual budget of 27 millioneuros it is in a different league to most other tem-ples to art.
Many civic politicians now put their faith in thevisual impact of their cultural buildings – and all ofthem, of course, want their own »Guggenheim«.MACBA director Manuel Borja-Villel is critical:»Large, high-profile centres are built simply to cre-ate an attractive label. This is one of the problemswe have to live with.« In other words: a photo-genic, glittering outer shell is no guarantee of out-standing exhibitions, an impressive collection or agood educational program. Loan agreements withtheir overseas partners oblige major institutionslike the Museo Guggenheim and the Museu de lesCiències Príncipe Felipe in Valencia to take on alarge proportion of the exhibitions regardless ofthe content. According to Borja-Villel, these muse-ums profit from their status as crowd-pulling at-tractions despite their often unattractive exhibitionconcepts.
Zaragoza is presently enjoying an unprecedent-ed architectural boom. What the 1992 OlympicGames were to Barcelona, EXPO 2008 was tothe Aragon city. Francisco Mangado erected theSpanish Pavilion and Zaha Hadid added one moreto her numerous Spanish projects – an emblemat-ic bridge-pavilion over the Ebro, a hybrid structurewith dynamically constructed lines that pick up onthe movement of the river. The Madrid architectteam Nieto Sobejano designed the icon of EXPO2008 – the Congress Palace, which with its sculp-tural elegance, clear constructive logic and func-tional flexibility. The Basel firm Herzog & de Meu-ron were also commissioned to connect the Mu-.seo de Zaragoza and the neighbouring Escuelade Arte. The Swiss architects did not restrictthemselves to restoring the complex. In fact, theycompare their project with the cathedral that Car-los V built within the Great Mosque of Córdoba inthe 16th century. On the subject of their conceptfor four »anchor rooms«, Jacques Herzog andPierre de Meuron write: »The insertion of the fourAnchor Rooms is essentially a violent act becauseit destroys part of the building, disrupting its his-torical continuities and spatial configurations. Butit is also a liberating act because it opens up anumber of new perspectives and adds a numberof substantial dimensions to the historicist con-cept«.2 The four anchor rooms of the EspacioGoya, which should be completed in 2010, havereconstructions of the Aragon artist’s four great-est frescoes – the vault frescoes of Zaragoza’sCarthusian monastery of Aula Dei and the Madridchapel San Antonio de la Florida, and the wallpaintings from Goya’s private house, Quinta delSordo and the Real Academia de San Fernando inMadrid. Following the CaixaForum on the Paseodel Prado in Madrid and the Tenerife Espacio deArte (TEA) in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, this is theBasel architects’ third Spanish museum project.
These kinds of projects are a consequence ofthe Bilbao effect. Since Spanish politicians heardhow the Museo Guggenheim has benefited Bil-bao’s economy, they have been organising re-stricted-entry competitions between Santiago deCompostela and Málaga. Apart from a few Span-ish architects, entrants are exclusively internationalstars. The Bodega Marqués de Riscal in Elciego
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1. Mansilla +Tuñon, Museo de Cantabria, San-tander, 2003. 2. Herzog & de Meuron, Espacio Goya, Zaragoza,2006. 3. Sanaa (Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa), ex-tension for the Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno(IVAM), Valencia, 2002.
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ground plan outlines rather than a unified spatialorganism. The regularly perforated façade is alsointended to evoke the famous mosque.
Recently the southern regions have also beenable to attract international stars. For instance,Zaha Hadid is building a university library in Sevilleand Herzog & de Meuron completed the TenerifeEspacio de Arte (TEA) in Santa Cruz de Tenerifeat the end of 2008. In the culture centre there isan extensive collection of paintings by the locallyborn painter Óscar Domínguez (1906–1957), anaficionado of surrealist art circles in Paris. The ex-hibition space is dedicated to international con-temporary art and aims to become an »interna-tional reference point«. The massive competitionfrom similar art centres makes a glittering outershell designed by an international star essential. Itis, however, questionable whether Pritzker Prizewinners can help to create an impressive museumrepertoire as well as improving a city’s image.
As the state in Spain has followed the trend inincreasingly relinquishing its cultural responsibili-ties, many foundations, large and small, havesprung up to fill the gap thus created. Undoubted-ly the most influential is the Catalan la Caixa, asubsidiary of the regional bank of the same name.The foundation works on a fairly simple system.It receives 37.6% of the profits from la Caixa inSpain. In 2008, this came to an impressive annualbudget of 500 million euros available to the foun-dation, with 79 million euros available for culturalactivities alone. In Barcelona – site of its head of-fice – the la Caixa foundation exclusively financestwo large museums: the science museum Cos-moCaixa, one of the first cultural buildings built inthe post-Franco era and the CaixaForum, one ofBarcelona’s most impressive monuments to Mo-dernisme, which was perceptively turned into an artcentre by Arata Isozaki in 2002. The leadership ofla Caixa then decided to build a central art hall inthe historical centre of Madrid, and commissionedthe Basel architects Herzog & de Meuron. Asidefrom the powerful la Caixa in Catalonia, it is thesmaller foundations that are the cultural scene’s
major support, and not only in the big cities. Thebest-known example of this relatively new Spanishtrend is the Fundación Eduardo Chillida – Pilar Be-zunce, which is responsible for the unique sculp-ture park Chillida-Leku in Hernani, not far fromSan Sebastián. Another example is the ConsorcioMuseo Vostell Malpartida, which manages a Flu-xus collection instituted in Malpartida de Cáceresby Wolf Vostell in the midst of a breeding area forwhite storks in the heart of barren Extremadura.
Another unusual project has existed for sometime in the very south of Spain, directly on theStrait of Gibraltar. 30 km east of Cádiz, amongpines, cork oaks and olive trees, a sculpturemeadow was created on the site of a military facil-ity once used to guard the natural frontier withMorocco. Works by the Irish Olafur Eliasson, theSerbian Marina Abramovic and the Spanish Santi-ago Sierra among others are now exhibited herein the open air. In addition to these, new artworksare continually being presented in small exhibitionpavilions. The Chinese artist Huang Yong Ping, forinstance, borrowed from Western bunker archi-tecture for one of his two pavilions and from theArabic hammam for the other. His highly symbolicwork encapsulates the contradictions of our mod-ern world in this geographically strategic point be-tween the continents. The South African BerniSearle’s video installation Home and Away power-fully addresses the issue of African migrants flood-ing into the Costa de Luz. The site where thesewere staged has the initially difficult name Centrode Arte Contemporáneo Montenmedio de Vejerde la Frontera. As this does not exactly trip off thetongue even if one is Spanish, it has acquired theunofficial acronym NMAC. The downside of theAndalusian foundation’s artistic merits is theircommercialisation. Its advertising is dominated byentertainments with nothing to do with art – golf,equestrian sport, even motocross racing. Anyonevisiting the Costa de Luz art centre must accept itas part of a larger entertainment park.
The Spanish foundation with the longest historyis linked with the names of possibly the most im-
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4. Alberto Campo Baeza, Museo de la Memoriade Andalucía, Granada, 2009. Building this muse-um is intended to reduce northern Spain’s domi-nance in terms of cultural institutions.
(La Rioja) actually insisted on awarding the con-tract directly to Frank Gehry, who could be ex-pected to produce not only a truly spectacular ho-tel building, but also a uniquely enticing label. Oth-er stars have also become firmly established in theSpanish architectural scene since the end of the 1990s. They include Norman Foster and Domini-que Perrault, but the leading figures are Zaha Ha-did, Jean Nouvel and Herzog & de Meuron, whobetween them win almost every prestigious com-petition.
Thankfully, the quest for cultural tourism in thesouth of Spain is able to keep away from gigan-tism. Richard Gluckman’s new Picasso museumin Málaga, situated next to the Arabic Alcazabaand the Roman amphitheatre and integratedbeautifully into the fabric of the old town, mayhave been a great success, but one cannot helpasking why Spain is dedicating yet another muse-um to its great artist, why an international celebri-ty and media fair had to accompany its officialopening in 2003 – and whether the wasted EUmoney could not have been better spent on build-ing art centres across Andalusia, as proposed byMUSAC dircetor Agustín Pérez-Rubio. Thanks tothis cash bonanza – which other Andalusian citiesdid not benefit from at all – Málaga now has threePicasso centres: the Picasso museum in Palaciode los Duques de Buenavista, another Picassomuseum in the restored bishop’s palace and thehouse where Picasso was born, a regular site ofpilgrimage for tourists.
In Andalusia, whose cultural scene is so far un-developed, Málaga with its Picasso museums is ashining exception. In 2004 there were high hopesin Seville as Harald Szeemann hosted his ambi-tions 1st art biennale in a former convent on theLa Cartuja, the island of the Expo, but, followingthe death of the renowned Swiss curator, theGuadalquivir city threatened to sink back intoartistic mediocrity. And yet Seville has the RealesAtarazanas, a fantastic exhibition venue. This is ashipyard originally built at the instigation of Alfon-so the Wise in the 13th century, an archaic-look-ing site with massive arcades and vaults. Backin 2004, the Andalusian artist Pilar Albarracínbreathed unexpected new life into the RealesAtarazanas with her ironic take on Spanish myths.In fact, Seville has several potentially fascinatingart venues that it should make more use of. An-other of these is the Cuartel del Carmen. Thismedieval convent was used as a barracks duringFranco’s rule. It was abandoned at the end of theeighties and shortly afterwards became an exhi-bition centre for a short time. In 1988, the Ameri-can artist Julian Schnabel installed his impressiveshow »Reconocimientos Pinturas«, here. Heldanywhere other than in this remarkable building,it would not have been the same show.
Pioneering museum building projects are in-creasingly taking place on the Mediterraneancoast – the region that profited most from the gar-gantuan real estate boom. Presently the most im-pressive projects are taking place in Valencia andCartagena. Valencia’s development is guided byurban planning – after the completion of Calatra-va’s Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias, reorgani-sation of the coastal zone based on the masterplan by Jean Nouvel and Gerkan Marg & Partneris the next step – but the mood of the museumscene is also upbeat. Some years ago, the IVAM
(Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno), whichhouses an important collection by the sculptorJulio González, requested the Japanese teamSanaa to design an extension. Their creation ex-pands the museum’s overall area by 10 000 sqm.Kazuo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa have put a 30 m high perforated metallic shell over the oldbuilding, creating a transitional zone between inte-rior and exterior, closed space and open space,urban space and the art sector. At the 9th Archi-tecture Biennale in 2004 in Venice, this design re-ceived the Golden Lion, but for political and legalreasons the decision on planning permission hasbeen indefinitely postponed.
Cartagena, another Andalusian city, is also in-vesting in prestigious projects. In autumn 2008,Guillermo Vázquez Consuegra, who previouslybuilt the Museo Valenciano de la Ilustración y dela Modernidad (MUVIM) in Valencia, completedthe Museo Nacional de Arqueología Marítima. TheSeville-born architect divided the museum com-plex into two volumes: a transparent zigzag build-ing to house the research programme and anopaque prism with a skylight for the exhibitionspace. As the museum is devoted to the under-water world, Vázquez Consuegra situated muchof its content underground. Long-time leadingfigure Rafael Moneo has taken on an entirely dif-ferent project in Cartagena. After the excavationof the Roman amphitheatre directly next to thechurch of Santa María la Vieja in recent years, thedecision was made to design not only an archae-ological garden but also an exhibition space forthe excavated objects. Moneo’s project is highlycomplex because it means intervening in the city’sstructure, with a museum concept that makes in-telligent use of both old and new buildings. RafaelMoneo’s Cartagena project complements otherarchaeological museums in Andalusia witnessingto southern Spain’s rich Roman and Arabic her-itage.
Alberto Campo Baeza’s Museo de la Memoriade Andalucía in Granada – one of the projectspresented at the New York MoMA exhibition »On-Site: New Architecture in Spain« at the beginningof 2006 – also stands out among the museumbuildings that will be part of Andalusia’s future cul-tural landscape. Campo Baeza proposes a clearstructure for the museum complex, with a narrowslice taken up by administration and a sunken ex-hibition area at the front, reached via impressivespiralling ramps.
This ambitious project by the home of theMoorish Alhambra marks a change of policy forAndalusia’s cultural centres whose repercussionscan be felt most of all in Córdoba, former capitalof the Caliphate of Córdoba. Here on the Guadal-quivir, the Madrid architect Juan Navarro Balde-weg has created a landscaped park, openingCórdoba out onto the river once again. On theother bank – where the modern town is to stand –Rem Koolhaas is to build the Palacio de Congre-sos, with the Madrid architects Nieto and Sobe-jano’s Espacio de Creación Artística Contem-poránea (a centre for media art) directly next to it –a promising art centre based on the geometricalspatial structure and decorative patterns of theCórdoba mosque, creating a connection with theMoorish past. Fuensanta Nieto and Enrique Sobe-jano see the centre as a repeating spatial forma-tion created by variations on three hexagonal
8
garde centres – architects like Erich Mendelsohn,Theo van Doesburg and Walter Gropius travelledto Spain to give lectures. The Catalan capital inparticular became a cosmopolitan metropolis: J.J.P. Oud’s Dutch housing developments wereechoed in experimental minimum subsistencehousing units and Le Corbusier’s »Immeuble Vil-la« design gave rise to the collectively designed»Casa Bloc« (1932/33), an open residential blockwith maisonette apartments and communal facili-ties. Like the Dessau Bauhaus, the GATCPAC,founded by Sert in 1930, aimed to improve livingconditions in society and to create social housing.Sert’s collaboration with Catalonia’s governmentwas full of potential. Both were looking for a newdirection after the Rivera dictatorship, and theychose International Style architecture and urbanplanning. The government commissioned theGATCPAC architects to design rational housingoutside the Cerdà expansion area. The new col-lective goals also included urban planning pro-jects, including developing the Avenida Diagonal,a public road running through Barcelona, whichwas to be designed on the principles of the leg-endary CIAM congress »The Functional City«. Ofequal importance was the »Barcelona Futura«,the new overall plan for Barcelona negotiated bySert and Le Corbusier with the Catalan presidentMacià in 1932, after whom it was named. Thisplan, which was never to be implemented, wasdeveloped in close collaboration with Le Corbusierand has a place in the history of modern urbanplanning.
The next important event did not take place un-til 1992. During the economic boom, the OlympicGames gave Barcelona its first opportunity to real-ly explore the concepts of classical Modernism.Vittorio M. Lampugnani wrote that the aim hadbeen to reconcile Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneretand Josep Sert’s Plan Macià with Ildefonso Cer-dà’s »Eixample«.4 To mark the Olympic Games,Oriol Bohigas the influential departmental head forplanning had major urban projects carried out bynumerous international architects like NormanFoster, Arata Isozaki and Vittorio Gregotti and suc-ceeded remarkably in reviving the city’s compactpattern. Bohigas also invited many artists includ-ing Richard Serra, Claes Oldenburg, EduardoChillida, Ulrich Rückriem, Ellsworth Kelly and Re-becca Horn to create sculptures for Barcelona’sentire area. This initiative benefited the outskirts aswell as the inner city – their public areas were ex-panded by the building of ramblas, squares andparks. Peter Buchanan saw this as »a total re-design of Barcelona«.5 The old town was not leftout. For instance, Garcés/Sòria expanded the Pi-casso museum in Barrio Gótico and Viaplana/Piñon transformed the Casa de la Caritat in neigh-bouring Raval into the Centre de Cultura Contem-pòranea de Barcelona (CCCB) and finally the NewYork architect Richard Meier built the Museu d’ArtContemporani de Barcelona (MACBA) – the high-light of the architectural, cultural and social renew-al of the Ciutat Vella.
Oriol Bohigas commented that the short peri-od of architectonic experimentation had endedabruptly in 1939, when the Franco regime be-came established. For this reason, it was impor-tant to Bohigas to reconnect with the achieve-ments of the Spanish avant-garde of the twentiesand thirties after the move towards democracy
in 1975. The revivalist trends since the fifties showthat these achievements had never been entirelyburied – witness the serial housing developmentsby Fernández del Amo in Vegaviana, Alejandro dela Sota’s governmental building in Tarragona andSáenz de Oiza’s Torres Blancas in Madrid. Bohi-gas, who was director of the Escuela de Arquitec-tura de Barcelona from 1977 to 1980, believes thatSpain was fortunate enough to be spared the in-terruptions to architectural development created inGermany by National Socialist architectural ideolo-gy. Instead, a »Spanish rationalism« was allowedto develop at the fringes of the International Style,different from it in certain respects. Bohigas seesthis as a style »distinguished by critical maturityand the will to go beyond initial idealistic conceptsand design and architectural utopias by reclaimingregional traditions, by clearly understanding con-structive systems and real social need and by acertain eclectic style.6
Kurt W. Forster once said that Spanish archi-tecture had experienced a phenomenal boom af-ter Franco’s death, turning Spain into an »archi-tectural laboratory«.7 At the beginning of 2006,when Terence Riley organised the MoMA exhibi-tion »On Site. New Architecture in Spain«, theMadrid architecture historian Luis Fernández-Ga-liano brought out a special edition of the magazineArquitectura Viva entitled »Spain Builds. Arquitec-tura en España. 1975–2005«. In this volume, theAmerican critic Kenneth Frampton attributes thesame continuous qualities to Spanish architectureas Oriol Bohigas does: »The primary characteristicof Spanish architecture is surely its relationshipwith topography. Its secondary characteristic is itstectonic properties, the ubiquitous poetry of theconstruction, which can be seen in very differenttypes of building. This can lead to Spanish archi-tecture appearing extremely laconic, or even de-cidedly anti-spectacular. (…) Spanish buildingsgenerally have a tectonic component far removedfrom media-oriented consumerism and from re-ductionism of the »decorated shed« type. This ar-chitecture may lead to manifold interpretationsand contradictions, but at its cultural heart it op-poses the trend towards globalisation that is in-creasingly reducing the architectonic form to acomfortable, aesthetic product.8
Spanish museum architecture since the lateseventies – i. e. since the democratic »transi-ción« – can be understood better when seenagainst this complex history. We can see a histori-cal »continuity« in this architecture that runs in adirect line from Rafael Moneo’s early Museo Na-cional de Arte Romano (1985) in Mérida to his en-largement of the Prado museum in Madrid (2008).
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1 Julio Llamazares, »Arte contemporáneo«, El País,05.10.2004.2 Herzog & de Meuron, Espacio Goya. El Museode Zaragoza (Spanish/English), Basel 2006, p. 9.3 Quoted from Josep M. Rovira, Sert: 1928–1979.Half a Century of Architecture. Complete Work,Fundaciò Joan Mirò, Barcelona 2005, p. 325.4 Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani, »De Sevilla aBarcelona«, in: Luis Fernández-Galiano, SpainBuilds. Arquitectura en España. 1975–2005 (Span-ish/English), special edition of Arquitectura Viva,Madrid 2006, p.132.5 Peter Buchanan, »Un florecimiento cultural«, ibid.,p. 112.6 Oriol Bohigas, »Rationalismus und internationaleAvantgarde«, in: Architektur im 20. Jahrhundert.Spanien, Munich 2000, p. 83.7 Kurt W. Forster,»España es un laboratorio, cultural y politico«, ElPaís, 7.9.2004.8 Kenneth Frampton, »Banderas al viento«; in: LuisFernández-Galiano, loc cit., p. 86.
portant Catalan artist and architect: Joan Miròand Josep Lluís Sert. Its design dates back to 1968, when many architects in Barcelona hopedthat Sert would bring back the glory days of theGATCPAC (Grup d’Arquitectes i Tècnics Catalansper al Progrés de l’Arquitectura Contemporània)during the Second Republic, when he collectedarchitecture’s avant-garde together and createdseveral important buildings in his home town. In 1952, Oriol Bohigas, who was president of theFundaciò Joan Mirò and chief planner for Barce-lona in the eighties, wrote to Sert: »The battleagainst Spanish architecture’s stupid banality inrecent years is wearing us down. When you finallycome to join us, we will be in better spirits and beinspired to new efforts.«3 Sert, who was made adean at the Graduate School of Design in Harvardin 1953, did not come to the metropolis on theMediterranean until much later, after the openingof the museum and the death of Franco in 1975.He held no hopes for Barcelona while Franco’sdictatorship existed, and so he designed the mu-seum for the Miró foundation faraway in his stu-dio in Cambridge. He chose the Montjuïc hill asthe site, so that the building would be betterscreened from the cityscape. The museum wasbuilt in the last stages of Franco’s regime and rep-resented a relaxation of cultural politics. Architectslike Oriol Bohigas, José Antonio Coderch, ÓscarTusquets, Ricardo Bofill and Manuel de Solà-Morales were able to continue and reinvent theavant-garde architecture of the thirties during thisperiod.
Josep Lluís Sert based his museum buildingon his design for the Fondation Maeght in Saint-Paul-de-Vence in France (1964). He created sky-lights, a clear system of passages through thebuilding, and gardens and terraces adapted to thelayout of the museum’s rooms and its situation.The museum ensemble consists of small unitsgrouped around an inner courtyard. Sert usedmodern materials like concrete, but also incorpo-
rated regional building traditions like the Catalanvault and tiled floor. In the last twenty years, pro-ject director Jaume Freixa was twice commis-sioned to add extensions to the museum build-ing suited to Sert’s structural logic.
Three dates are of primary importance to Span-ish modern architecture. In 1926, after the death,caused by a tram, of Antoni Gaudí, the popularmodernisme, the Catalan variety of Art Nouveau,began to decline. Barely two years later, the archi-tects of Barcelona joined the general enthusiasmfor Le Corbusier. At the time, the Frenchman wasthe new star in the firmament of international ar-chitecture. Josep Lluís Sert invited him to lecturesin the Catalan metropolis. Le Corbusier was unim-pressed by Gaudí’s buildings, but the provisionalschools next to the Sagrada Familia cathedral(largely forgotten today) did interest him. He re-corded the wavelike curves of their roof in his fa-mous notebook. On the other hand, he paid noattention to La Pedrera and Sagrada Familia.
Another crucial date was the year 1929. Onthe occasion of the World Exhibition, Mies vander Rohe dressed up in the traditional top hat andtails to open his legendary pavilion on the Mon-tjuïc, which, in a town that was still a bastion oftraditional Noucentisme, looked like a buildingfrom another world. Mies’ understanding of con-struction techniques and spatial arrangementgradually made an impact on the nascent Catalanavant-garde surrounding Sert. The year 1929 alsosaw an architectonic emergence in Seville in An-dalusia, where the World Exhibition on the Gua-dalquivir was characterised by a revival of tradi-tional historicism. It was no accident that Spanisharchitecture was gradually opening up at this par-ticular time. At around the same time, the regimeof Primo de Rivera stepped down and Spanishsociety began to become more democratic, cul-minating in the proclamation of the 2nd Republicin 1931. During this short but turbulent time – dur-ing which Barcelona and Madrid became avant-
10
5. Josep Lluís Sert, Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelo-na, 1975. It was the first modern museum in Spain.
Klaus Englert: What do you think of Álvaro Siza’sopen-space plan? As you know, he wants tomake the Paseo del Prado more attractive andconnect the museums – the Thyssen-Bornemisza,the Reina Sofia, the CaixaForum and the Prado –together better. Rafael Moneo: Siza takes his cue from Salón delPrado, the great project by Charles III. Personally Ihave always liked the lines of the Paseo de laCastellana and Paseo del Prado. They demon-strate the beauty and modesty of 18th and 19thcentury Madrid architecture. To some extent itwas a case of making a virtue of a necessity. Be-cause in Madrid they couldn’t imitate the axiality ofthe Paris boulevards, they created the sequencesand alternations of the Via Castellana.Klaus Englert: Madrid hopes that the »Paseo delArte« project will bring with it international promi-nence. Prado director Miguel Zugaza says that theaim is to emulate Berlin’s Museuminsel. Is Berlin’shomogenous ensemble like the »Paseo del Arte«in any way? Rafael Moneo: As you know Miguel Zugazawants to reconnect the remaining parts of thePalacio del Retiro. The envisaged »Campus delMuseo del Prado« is certainly an ambitious pro-ject, but this new ensemble will not incorporatethe other museums on the »Paseo del Arte«.There is no existing homogenous complex here,as there is on the Berlin Museumsinsel. It is morea case of architects seeking specific solutionsthat relate to specific sites.Klaus Englert: The Prado extension is the mostrecent of several museum buildings designed byyou. You previously built the Museo Nacional deArte Romano in Mérida, the Audrey Jones BeckBuilding of the Museum of Fine Arts in Houstonand the Moderna Museet in Stockholm. Which ofthese museums is your favourite?Rafael Moneo: That’s an easy question to an-swer. My favourite museum project was the first,the Museo Nacional de Arte Romano. The stylisticreferences to the Roman building style seemedparticularly clear and appropriate, without anyslavish imitation. At the moment I am working on asimilar project which hasn’t been publicized muchthus far. It involves an archaeological museum be-ing built on the site of the excavated Roman am-phitheatre in Cartagena.Klaus Englert: Spanish architecture – and partic-ularly Spanish museum architecture – has beenenjoying a resurgence since the 1980s. Why doyou think this is? Rafael Moneo: There is a huge difference be-tween the Franco era and everything that cameafter the »transición«. During the France regime,there were hardly any museums and not muchof a cultural scene. Since democracy came in in1975, Spain has had a lot of catching up to do.Not only the major cities but also increasingly thesmaller provincial towns of our 17 autonomousregions have invested in museums. The MuseoGuggenheim probably showed many cities theway forward in more ways than one. Many com-munities followed its example, albeit with varyingdegrees of success. A few years ago, when I builtthe Fundación Beulas in Huesca, it was a ques-tion of building a small museum for the commu-nity – a place for art collections and for non-per-manent exhibitions – together with a town park.But it varies from case to case. The MUSAC built
by Mansilla +Tuñon in León shows that there is a strong demand for cultural services, as do themuseums they built in Zamora und Castellón.Klaus Englert: Would you say that Spain has ac-quired a completely new attitude to culture withina generation?Rafael Moneo: All in all, I think 1980 and 2007were significantly different. Both cultural and archi-tectonic interests are easier to pursue today thanthey previously were. This goes together with far-reaching social changes. Once upon a time, mu-seums were elitist institutions that benefited onlycertain levels of society. In 1980, only the middleclasses went to museums, whereas today it isgenerally recognised that museums have some-thing to offer for everybody culturally. Today’s situ-ation would have been unthinkable a few yearsago. Museums are speaking to people, and peo-ple are finding themselves attracted to the art-works. The visitors are actually proving them-selves equal to the newly available cultural trea-sures. Klaus Englert: Do the teams running museumssee their role differently today? Rafael Moneo: This may be one way the BilbaoEffect has changed the museum world’s structure.Museum directors now play a larger part in cultur-al life and are better able to make their point ofview felt. Think of the Centro de Arte Contem-poráneo de Málaga (CAC Málaga). It has no inter-national role, but it is very important to the city’scultural life.Klaus Englert: What do you think about the manynew museums of modern art that are springing upnow, particularly in northern and central Spain? Isthere enough material in the collections to justifythis?Rafael Moneo: Firstly, I think that both the northand the south do need new art centres, eventhough north and south have very different politi-cal and economic circumstances and networks.Regional government autonomy has achievedmany things, with political and social transforma-tion leading to a new cultural understanding – anda new role for art centres. A situation has beencreated in which museums raise the profile of thearts, and the arts influence the creation of the mu-seums and their programmes. Of course this hasalso changed the role of contemporary Spanisharchitecture. A lot has been written about theboom in Spanish architecture since the 1990s, butthis phenomenon should not be separated fromthe enormous accompanying changes in Spanishsociety. What the success and adaptability we seein Spanish architecture ultimately reveals is the dy-namism of Spanish society.
Madrid, 10 May 2007
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1. The Museum del Prado, Madrid, with exten-sion by Rafael Moneo and minster Los Jerónimos.2. Rafael Moneo, Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró, Palma de Mallorca, 1992.3. Rafael Moneo, Moderna Museet and Arkitektur-museet, Stockholm, 1998.4. Rafael Moneo, Audrey Jones Beck Building, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 2000.
Respectful extension
The re-opening of the Prado in October 2007 re-ceived widespread attention. Rafael Moneo’s ex-tension will further enhance the allure of the Pradoand of the new Madrid museum ensemble as awhole. In this interview, Moneo talks about howhis extension respects Villanueva’s museum’s ar-chitectonic style as far as possible, without totallyavoiding modern styles.
Klaus Englert: Your extension to the Prado wascompleted this spring, after five years of construc-tion. There was a legal battle lasting several yearsbefore it could be built, because residents lodgedan appeal with the courts. What do you thinkabout that today?Rafael Moneo: The Prado is a very well-lovedmuseum that everyone associates with Madrid.And so many people feared that any architectonicchange would detract from the Prado’s familiarimage. My extension project, however, is very re-strained, with a discreet structural logic and a pre-cisely worked-out and well-considered spaceplan. Juan de Villanueva’s Prado would be noplace for an unconnected extension that violatedthe logic of all the earlier extensions. The exten-sion therefore had to be built at the rear of thebuilding. We built a tract connecting the two,whose role within the building is comparable tourban access infrastructure. My intervention bare-ly changes Villanueva’s Prado. The Museo delPrado always had a strong topographic element,and it profits from the recreation of the original dif-ference in height. This was where my idea of howthe old and new buildings should fit into the hill-side behind the museum came from. This idea isa clear tribute to Villanueva. If he were still here,200 years on, he might agree.Klaus Englert: What do you think of the wholecomplex as it stands today?
Rafael Moneo: Once the Puerta de Velázquezopens on the Paseo del Prado and people cango directly from the old to the new building, theywill be able to better understand Villanueva’s ar-chitecture and its structure. In the past few yearsof the extension’s completion, I was particularlyconcerned with the shape of the foyer’s roof.Obviously I didn’t want it to look like a supermar-ket. So I decided to lay out a classical gardenon top. For me, this garden complex was one ofthe most interesting parts of the extension pro-ject.Klaus Englert: How did you deal with the archi-tectonic features of Villanueva’s Museo del Pradoand the historical extensions?Rafael Moneo: There were two issues involved –the urban planning problem of improving the ac-cess areas in front of the new entrances, and theactual architectonic task of extending the exhibi-tion space – although the two processes weren’tmutually exclusive. My extension project aimed tounderstand Villanueva’s palace, with its architec-tonic logic, and to expand on it using a moderate-ly modern concept. I wasn’t interested in buildingan extension that contradicted the Museo del Pra-do’s essential logic. I think my annex respects Vil-lanueva’s architecture without being spectacularin itself.Klaus Englert: What made you use clinker – nowused by very few architects – for the redesign ofthe cloister?Rafael Moneo: I worked with this material whenI built the Bankinter building and converted theAtocha station. In my home village, a lot of build-ing was done in brick and ceramics, so I have arespect for them as materials. Some members ofthe Prado foundation would have preferred mod-ern materials. But I think that a glass façade nextto the Cloister of Jerónimo would have looked dis-ruptive, and that using stone would have lookedarrogant.
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35
Paredes Pedrosa Arquitectos, Museo Arqueológico, Almeria, 2004
The province of Almería has many architecturaltreasures. The area was inhabited during the earli-est period of human cultural development, as re-vealed by the Palaeolithic cave paintings in VélezBlanco. The settlement of Fuente Alamo datesfrom the Bronze Age (2 000 years BC), and thePhoenicians arrived in the eighth century BC andset up the first trading posts on the coast – one atCerro de Montecristo. The necropolis of Bolichesuggests that the original Iberian inhabitants livedin settlements shared with the Carthaginians andPhoenicians, and the province of Almería alsobears marks of the Roman colonisers who camelater. Their rule here dates back to the third centu-ry BC. The Moorish Alcazaba fortress from theTaifa period (dating from 1000 years AD) witness-es to Almería’s less distant history.
The Archaeological Museum of Almería wasfounded in 1933. It had to close in 1994 due tothe poor state of the building. Four years later andfollowing a competition, the Madrid architects An-gela García Paredes and Ignacio García Pedrosawere commissioned to build a new building in acontemporary style, and found themselves con-fronted with a densely built-up urban site with tallresidential buildings and a circular road. They builta compact building to counteract these inhos-pitable surroundings. The building’s front, whichlooks hermetically sealed, leaves space for asquare with palm trees, giving this densely built-up residential area some public space. An alreadyexisting garden with palms on the long side of thebuilding was extended to create a kind of attrac-tive open air lobby in front of the exhibition areas.Although the building’s façades have very differentdesigns, the architects used the same material –marble from the Almería area – for all of them.Only in a few places does an opening in the com-pact façade allow a view of the museum’s urbansurroundings. Although the museum has a monu-mental look at first, the observer quickly sees howthe gaps in the façade lighten its massive appear-ance.
Paredes Pedrosa Arquitectos designed a cen-tral airy space to help people find their way andconnect the permanent exhibition rooms with theother display room sections. The staircase radi-ates expansive openness and creates surprisingviews reminiscent of Scharoun’s Berliner Staats-bibliothek. The museum rooms are arranged intothree levels adjoined by the wide access area,while the administrative rooms are stacked fivestoreys high. There are few windows in the outerwalls; this allows full use of the rooms for display.Natural light enters this compact building mainlythrough the »sheds« on the roof facing north-west. To protect the archaeological finds as muchas possible, these are fitted with light filters – diag-onal strips of okumé wood laths, arranged so asto optimally absorb the intense sunlight.
34
1–4. Floor plans (basement, ground floor with ent-rance area and auditorium, first floor with library andexhibition area, second floor with administration and exhibition area).5, 6. The museum is secluded from its surround-ing like a fortress with a hortus conclusus.7. Section through the building.
ESTATUA
JUAN CU ADRADO RUIZ
ESTATUA
LUIS SIRET
1
2
3
4
5
CL-4 CL-3CL-2CL-7 CL-8CL-5
CL-1
-5,14
-3,74
-3,74
12 %
16 %
8 %
-2,40
-3,74
-2,55
-3,74
-3,74
-1,75
-5,14
-3,74
-2,40
+4,08
+7,82
+7,82
+9,69
PLANTA PRIMERA. SALAS. BIBLIOTECALEVEL 1. EXHIBITION R OOMS . LIBRARY
PLANTA SEGU NDA . SALAS. DIRECCIÓ NLEVEL 2. EXHIBITION R OO MS. OFFICES
15 m.
10
50
MUSEUM IN ALMERIAPAREDES PEDROSA ARQU ITECTOS
GROU ND FLOOR PLAN. EN TRANC E151050
N
MUSEO DE ALMERIAPAREDES PEDROSA ARQUITECTOS
PLANTA SÓ TANO . ALMAC ENES
ESTATUA
JUAN CU ADRADO RUIZ
ESTATUA
LUIS SIRET
1
2
3
4
5
CL-4 CL-3CL-2CL-7 CL-8CL-5
CL-1
-5,14
-3,74
-3,74
12 %
16 %
8 %
-2,40
-3,74
-2,55
-3,74
-3,74
-1,75
-5,14
-3,74
+4,08
+8,02
+7,82
+7,82
+7,82
+7,82
+9,69
+9,69
PLANTA PRIMERA. SALAS. BIBLIOTECALEVEL 1. EXHIBITION R OOMS . LIBRARY
PLANTA SEGU NDA . SALAS. DIRECCIÓ NLEVEL 2. EXHIBITION R OO MS. OFFICES
PLANTA TERCERA. SALAS. CONSERVADORESLEVEL 3. EXHIBITION ROOMS. CURATORS
15 m.
10
50
MUSEUM IN ALMERIAPAREDES PEDROSA ARQU ITECTOS
GROU ND FLOOR PLAN. EN TRANC E151050
N
0 105 15 m.
EXPOSICION PERMANENTE
EXPOSICION PERMANENTE
SALON DE ACTOS NUCLEO ACCESO SALAS
EXPOSICION PERMANENTE
PLAZA
PATIO DESCARGAACCESO DE PERSONAL
ALMACEN DE ARQUEOLOGIAALMACEN DE ARQUEOLOGIAALMACEN DE ARQUEOLOGIA FORJADO SANITARIO
BIBLIOTECA. SALA DE LECTURA
DIRECCION
AREA CONSERVADORES
AREA RESTAURACION
EXPOSICION TEMPORALPLAZA DE ACCESO ±0,00±0,00
-3,74
+7,82
+11,56
+15,30
+20,30
-5,14
+4,28
+2,80
+19,87
+4,28
+21,11
-0,36
-2,04
-1,50
+0,20
LONGITUDINAL SECTION
MUSEUM IN ALMERÍAPAREDES PEDROSA ARQUITECTOS
3736
8, 9. The museum asserts itself against the busystreet.10. A prominent staircase connects the exhibitionareas.
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11. Diagonal strips of Okumé-wood slats filter the natural light.12. The particular organization of the floors pro-duces an exciting space.
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dens, this is certainly a magical sight for passers-by on the Paseo del Prado. The lively front court isalso used for sculptural exhibitions, which beganin the spring of 2008 when the museum curatorsexhibited bronze sculptures by the Polish sculptorIgor Mitoraj.
The CaixaForum should provide the neighbour-ing Museo Reina Sofía with some stiff competi-tion. Both institutions have become establishedas leading museums of 20th-century art in Spain.The Reina Sofia, which has an exceptional collec-tion of classical modern paintings, is expected tobecome increasingly open to experimental artisticpractices under its new director, Manuel Borja-Villel. The CaixaForum’s collection focuses on con-temporary art, beginning with the post-war move-ments represented by Joseph Beuys, ChristianBoltanski, Bruce Nauman, Bill Viola, Anselm Kie-fer, Gerhard Richter and Georg Baselitz. As withthe Reina Sofia, the intention is to stage concertcycles, debates and other events as well as exhi-bitions. The rivalry between the two institutionsmay well prove fruitful. The rush of visitors in thespring of 2008 points that way; 70 000 culture en-thusiasts visited the new CaixaForum over a singleweekend, and the Reina Sofia also received a record number of visitors.
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Herzog & de Meuron, CaixaForum, Madrid,2008
Conversion work on the three famous state-runmuseums on Paseo del Prado concluded in theautumn of 2007 with Rafael Moneo’s extension forthe Museo del Prado. Finally, in February 2008,these were followed by the renowned la Caixafoundation’s private art gallery. Madrid had to waita long time for the CaixaForum, a much-praiseddesign by the Basel team Herzog & de Meuron, toactually be built. Now, however, one can reach thenew art gallery from the Prado simply by crossingthe street diagonally. The Museo Thyssen-Borne-misza, another temple to the Muses with a newextension, and the Museo Reina Sofía, with itsmuch-publicised extension by Jean Nouvel, arealso close by.
Herzog & de Meuron set themselves the ambi-tious task of integrating the officially listed perime-ter walls of a power station, the Central Eléctricadel Mediodía into the museum building, increasingthe space available onsite by a factor of five andachieving iconic status for the resulting architec-tonic hybrid. This was even harder than what Ara-ta Isozaki accomplished six years earlier in Bar-celona when he converted the Modernistic brickbuildings of a former textile factory from the year1911 into the CaixaForum art gallery and added asunken extension.
Herzog & de Meuron described the new muse-um as a »magnet« for all Madrid. In contrast with
the moderate forms of Rafael Moneo’s Prado an-nex, the Swiss architects created a true architec-tonic sensation, setting out to prove that radicalcontemporary and imaginative architecture couldwork in a traditional urban environment. They cancertainly be said to have succeeded.
Opposite the Royal Botanical Gardens, theCaixaForum rises from the slightly climbing resi-dential district like a mountain massif. The oldbuilding was gutted and had its granite foundationliterally removed, and it was raised from three tofive storeys. Two further storeys were built under-ground. This radical change to the existing struc-ture makes the building look as if it is floating. Theresulting connective space serves as a new publicspace and an entrance for the CaixaForum culturecentre. The prism-shaped entrance area leadingupward to the foyer, with its sheet steel cladding,looks like expressionist film architecture.
The roof profile of the new, raised building, withits angles and indentations, is a particularly attrac-tive element of the new Paseo del Prado museumdistrict. Cast iron tiles with a similar colour to thebrick roof tiles of the neighbouring houses wereapplied to the façade. For some years, Herzog &de Meuron have been interested in these hybridconstruction elements due to their decorative andtextile-like qualities. For the CaixaForum, they used irregularly perforated modules which protectthe grafted-on structure like an outer skin. Theseporous plates enveloping the whole fourth storeyare its façade and windows at the same time.
They enclose the inner space, but also allow sub-dued light into it, creating a pleasant clair-obscureffect.
The Swiss architects use the interior to demon-strate their concept of sensory design. Teardrop-shaped lamps from Herzog & de Meuron’s work-shop hang in the restaurant. The elegantly curvedspiral of the stairwell is a brilliant white. The foyer,with its upward stair, has a surprising rough charmand industrial ambience, characterised by neonlights, steel flooring and bare ventilation pipes. Theviolet sofas at the edge are equally surprising. Thedirector’s room appears claustrophobic at first,until one sees the window slits directly beneaththe ceiling. The two underground auditoriumsevoke similar feelings. Their walls are covered witha curved, metallic mesh. The two large unsupport-ed exhibition halls, on the other hand, appearplain and neutral. They are fully sealed off fromthe outside world.
For some years, Herzog & de Meuron have col-laborated with fine artists and photographers, andon this occasion, they invited the French botanistand garden artist Patrick Blanc to add touches oflandscape architecture to the open court in frontof the building, which was previously defaced bya petrol station. Blanc decorated a fireproof wallbelonging to one of the buildings that hems thesquare in with a living wall of plants. 15 000 plantsof 250 different species grow on this wall, sus-pended from a metallic mesh that doubles as anirrigation system. Set next to the botanical gar-
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1. The CaixaForum with its forecourt and the wall of plants by Patrick Blanc. 2. The CaixaForum looking towards Lavapiés quar-ter.
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3–6. Floor plans (basement, entrance floor, first floor, second floor).
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7. The open space on the entrance floor. 8. The central staircase is not for people with no head for heights. 9. Section.
Richard Gluckman, Museo Picasso, Málaga, 2003
The preparations for the major event that was cel-ebrated in Málaga in the autumn of 2003 with re-gal pomp and ceremony began long before, andin secret. First, 204 valuable artworks were sentfrom Paris to Madrid, with the Spanish GuardiaCivil acting as an escort. They were then stored ina heavily-guarded barracks in Burgos and a banksafe-deposit box in Madrid. Finally, they reachedtheir destination in Málaga. After 112 years PabloPicasso (represented by his art) was making asymbolic return to his home town – and taking upresidence in the Picasso-Museum in Málaga.
Throughout his interminable exile in France, Pi-casso dreamed of being able to return to Málaga.As an atheist and sympathizer of the French com-munists, however, he was persona non grata inSpain. Instead, he sent his son Paulo to his hometown in 1954 to canvass the interest in a publicexhibition of his works in Málaga. However, thestubbornness of the Spanish authorities andPaulo’s early death prevented Picasso’s dreamfrom coming to fruition. »Degenerate art« – aphrase readily adopted from the National Social-ists – was the watchword of the times.
The New York architect Richard Gluckman converted the Palacio de los Duques de la Bue-navista, a palace in the Renaissance and mudéjarstyle, to house the Picasso collection, and alsoadded new buildings. Gluckman, the architect ofthe Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe (NewMexico) and the Andy Warhol Museum in Pitts-
burgh, had had previous experience of Picassoand Málaga in the early nineties, when CarmenGiménez, director of the new Picasso-Museums,organized a show – the first Picasso exhibition inMálaga – with the artist’s classical period as itstheme. For this purpose, Gluckman renovated thehalls of the episcopal palace opposite the cathe-dral. A small but select permanent exhibition ofworks by the master can still be seen there today.The problems created by the renovation of thePalacio de Buenavista in the Judería were entirelydifferent. As the palace’s rooms only had enoughspace to accommodate the collection, the com-munity had to purchase 18 neighbouring build-ings, which, following the official opening, wereconverted into an auditorium, an archive, a res-toration workshop, a library, an office and an edu-cational centre. Six new buildings, an elongatedbar with a skylight for temporary exhibitions andsome smaller buildings, were added.
In Palacio Buenavista, the symmetrical floorplan design of the Spanish Renaissance architec-ture dominates, while Moorish influences can pre-dominantly be seen in the decoration and capitals.According to Gluckman, his expansion projectwas duly »inspired by both the modern orthogonalstyle and the asymmetrical organization of Moor-ish architecture«. He successfully integrated thewhite cubes into the texture of the city, and didthe same for the rear connection to Calle de Al-cazabilla: our gaze is directed from a small groveof palm trees to the remains of the Roman theatreto the Moorish Alcazaba. Phoenician and Romanremains, which can now be viewed in the muse-
um, were fortuitously discovered during the con-struction work.
The Picasso collection comes from the inheri-tance of Paulo’s widow Christine Ruiz Picasso andher son Bernard. During the museum’s opening,both declared their intention to »gift the artworksto the museum unconditionally and out of gen-erosity«.
Given the accumulation of Picasso museums inParis, Barcelona and Munster, it makes sense toask what the collection of the new Picasso muse-um in Málaga has to offer. Unlike Barcelona’s Pi-casso museum, which focuses on his early peri-od, the new Málaga museum has material fromall the phases of his work. The most importantpieces include Picasso’s disturbing portrait of hisdead friend Casagemas (1901), his sensitive imageof the young Paolo in a cap (1923), his tenderdrawing Minotaure caressant du mufle la maind’une dormeuse (1933) and Jacqueline assise(1954). A few legal problems should be men-tioned: of the 240 artworks, most were freely do-nated, but 49 works are only on loan to the muse-um for a period of ten years. Forty pictures – in-cluding many of the most valuable – must be re-turned in a year’s time.
As regards the new museum’s exhibition activi-ties, most of the temporary exhibitions also focuson the city’s famous son. Now and then, however,they are dedicated to very different themes. At thebeginning of 2008, for instance, there was an in-teresting show on 50 years of portrait photogra-phy entitled: »De lo Humano. Fotografía interna-cional 1900–1950«.
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pp. 144, 145 1. The museum complex with the Roman theatreand the harbour. 2. The illuminated ensemble of the museum within its urban context.3. The patio.
4. Section through the museum, the Roman theatre and the Moorish Alcazaba. 5. Site plan.6. Section through the main exhibition area.
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7. The entrance hall. 8. The main exhibition hall.
Herzog & de Meuron, Tenerife Espacio delas Artes (TEA), Santa Cruz de Tenerife,2008
In recent years, an architecture boom capableof attracting notable architects has reached thetourist island of Tenerife. Among the first of thesearchitects was Santiago Calatrava, who created agleaming white concert house with a theatrical airon the edge of the harbour area of Santa Cruz deTenerife, at the harbour’s end, in 2003. In 2007,Artengo Menis Pastrana utilised an entirely differ-ent architectural language, designing a sports sta-dium for Santa Cruz inspired by the archaic powerof a volcano. Finally, Basel firm Herzog & de Meu-ron were commissioned to build the culture centreTenerife Espacio de las Artes – abbreviated to TEA – on a sensitive inner-city site. As the TEAwas to be built along the Barranco de Santos,which marks the boundary between the old andnew cities, the architects had to be perceptiveand aware of the site’s needs.
The Swiss architects decided to integrate thestructure, which stretches along the length of theBarranco de Santos, into the fabric of the city,thereby accentuating the dividing line between theold and new cities. Anyone crossing the GeneralSerrador Bridge at night cannot help but noticethe elongated concrete façade, and may very wellbe surprised to discover its irregular pixelatedstructure, with holes here and there that allow aglimpse into the interior. The first building to comeinto view is the culture centre’s library. As visitorsapproach, they realize the extent to which thisfacility is structured by artificial light – from lampscreated in Herzog & de Meuron’s workshop,hung stylishly on glowing glass rods 6 m long.The TEA’s magnificent and user-friendly library isactive at night as well as in the daytime – anyoneis allowed to use this unusual place as a work-space
Built on a sloping site, the Tenerife Espacio delas Artes is screened off by a dark-tinted façade.If you walk along the new street, laid through thebuilding Herzog & de Meuron like a kind of aisle,the picture is very different. The street leads fromthe mercantile new town past the glazed frontsides of the library, down via a projecting ramp tothe adjacent Museo de la Naturaleza y el Hombre.In front of the TEA’s expansive foyer, this prome-nade architecturale, which runs directly throughthe library, widens to become a partially roofed-over square. To left and right, this square offersviews into the deeper parts of the library. Herzog &de Meuron had previously revealed an interest inintegrating buildings into a specially created, pub-lic space with their Madrid CaixaForum design. InSanta Cruz, the square’s triangular shape is thestructuring feature. This geometrical form can beseen referenced in many different ways both in thelibrary’s interior and in the building’s cubature. Thiselaborate system of relationships, which obeys acomplex geometry, is the sole connection be-tween the new urban space and the freely acces-sible rooms inside the building.
The courtyard spaces are certainly one of theTEA’s most interesting features – one is plantedwith the vegetation of Tenerife, and the other,which vaguely echoes the triangular floor plan, islaid out as a rockery. In this space, local artistJuan Gopar created a wall with dotted patternsthat harmonises well with the pixelated façade.For many library users, this inner courtyard is apotential place for meditation, a hortus conclususadjacent to a unique library, which offers an intelli-gent interplay of transparencies and reflections,solid masses and perforations, compactness andopenness.
TEA director Javier González de Durana’s hopeis that the new culture centre’s art programme willappeal to some of the people that come to use itslibrary. One part of this programme, housed in the
ground storey, is the regional photography centre,which opened in the autumn of 2008 with an exhi-bition on the photographic and poster art of theSoviet avant-garde. The first floor is reserved foroffices and for temporary exhibitions. Among oth-er things, the auditorium on the 2nd floor, with itsBlack Box appearance, presents film seasonsstructured around the theme of current exhibi-tions – for instance, there was a film season toaccompany the ambitious »COSMOS. En buscade los orígenes – de Kupka a Kubrik« opening ex-hibition. The TEA used this exhibition to empha-sise its intention to rival Sáenz de Oíza’s CentroAtlántico de Arte Moderno (CAAM) in Las Palmasde Gran Canaria in terms of excellence as a mu-seum.
Originally the culture centre was to be calledthe »Instituto Oscar Domínguez« and showcasethe collection of Canadian surrealist Oscar Domín-guez along with works from friends of artists suchas Imi Knoebel and Jirí Georg Dokoupil. Since thename change to Tenerife Espacio de las Artes andthe addition of the public library, this collection,which is housed on the 2nd floor, is only one partof the new centre.
Generally the exhibition rooms were given a re-strained design, but it is interesting that some ofthe wall surfaces have deliberately been left un-treated. In these places, the roughness of the pix-elated façade is baldly displayed. This of course,can make these spaces, which tend to eclipseany exhibit, unsuitable as museum rooms. We aredrawn to look at the construction without really re-alising how demanding the formwork technologywas that created the holes, which have, so tospeak, an aleatory arrangement, and are glazedon the outside. The steel framework constructionbehind the projecting roof on the Avenida San Se-bastián is also not obvious.
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pp. 164,165 1. Night-time lighting of the museum.2–4. Floor plans (ground floor, first floor, second floor). 1 entrance, 2 entrance ramp, 3 video, 4 li-brary, 5 café, 6 exhibition, 7 entrance hall, 8 audi-torium, 9 design studio, 10 foyer, 11 administration 12 service, 13 court, 14 shop.
5. General view at night with old town and harbour.
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6, 7. The entrance ramp with illuminated library.8. Exhibition hall with translucent pixel façade.