加利西亚文化城丨艾森曼建筑师事务所

ShowCase: City of Culture of Galicia

ShowCase is an on-going feature series on Archinect, presenting exciting new work from designers representing all creative fields and all geographies.

We are always accepting nominations for upcoming ShowCase features - if you would like to suggest a project, please send us a message.

As construction continues on the six-building City of Culture of Galicia, the first completed building, the Galician National Archive, opened to employees this spring. The Archive is the southernmost building in the complex and, at 86,000 square feet, one of the smallest. Its undulating form – and that of all of the buildings – evolved from the layering of three sets of information on the hilltop site. First, the plan of the medieval center of Santiago de Compostela, a historic, religious pilgrimage city, was placed on the site. Second, a Cartesian grid representative of the modern city was laid over the medieval routes. Third, the topography of the hilltop was allowed to distort the flat geometries, thus producing a topological surface that posed old and new in a simultaneous matrix of figure and ground.

The six buildings in the matrix are conceived as three pairs. The Archive is paired with the Galician National Library to its north. The Archive and Library share a pedestrian street, or camino, and each features pedestrian arcades to protect visitors during the long Galician rainy season. The covered passage in the Archive cleaves the program into two parts, separating the grade-level exhibition gallery, which serves the entire complex, from the two-story archive itself, which houses public reading rooms, archiving and cataloguing areas, and closed stacks.

Eisenman Architects, City of Culture of Galicia competition model, 1999. National Archive building is in the foreground.

↑ Click image to enlarge

Eisenman Architects, City of Culture of Galicia volumetric analysis model, 2001.

↑ Click image to enlarge

Eisenman Architects, City of Culture of Galicia site plan, 2001. National Archive is the southernmost building.

Articulated soffits running the length of the interior demarcate major public areas from operational and service spaces. The exterior is clad in Spanish quartzite, a local stone, and a specially designed curtain wall that recalls traditional glazing patterns in Galicia. The Archive also features a double roof: an inner, waterproof membrane and an outer, stone-clad layer that channels heavy rain off the surface and hides roof mechanicals. The grids used in development of the site can also be seen in the pattern of the roof, and also supply a secondary gutter system.

The “tail” of the undulating Archive (an additional 57,000 square feet) houses the central chiller plant for the entire complex, which eliminated the need for individual building mechanical plants. The Archive and all of the buildings are linked below grade to a service tunnel, where the six-building complex’s heating plant is also located. The adjacent Library will be completed this fall, and the Heritage Research Center and History Museum in 2010. The International Art Center and Performing Arts Center will complete the complex.

↑ Click image to enlarge City of Culture of Galicia seen from southeast, 2009. L to R: Galician National Archive, National Library, History Museum (in background), Heritage Research Center. Photo courtesy Fundación Cidade da Cultura de Galicia.

↑ Click image to enlarge City of Culture of Galicia seen from the southeast, 2009. Photo: Paisajes Españoles. Courtesy Fundación Cidade da Cultura de Galicia.

↑ Click image to enlarge Galician National Archive south elevation, seen from the east. Photo: Manuel Gonzales Vicente. Courtesy Fundación Cidade da Cultura de Galicia.

↑ Click image to enlarge South facade of National Archive, with John Hejduk towers beyond. Photo: Manuel Gonzales Vicente. Courtesy Fundación Cidade da Cultura de Galicia.

↑ Click image to enlarge

West facade of Galician National Archive and two entries. Photo: Manuel Gonzales Vicente. Courtesy Fundación Cidade da Cultura de Galicia.

↑ Click image to enlarge Eisenman Architects, bird’s-eye plan view of National Archive from east entry, 2002.

↑ Click image to enlarge

Eisenman Architects, perspective view of Galician National Archive from east entry, 2002

↑ Click image to enlarge Eisenman Architects, Galician National Archive reflected ceiling plan, 2002.

↑ Click image to enlarge Eisenman Architects, longitudinal section of National Archive, 2002.

↑ Click image to enlarge Eisenman Architects, Section Model, 2004.

↑ Click image to enlarge Eisenman Architects, Section Model, 2004.

↑ Click image to enlarge

National Archive exhibition gallery, with glass floor. Photo: Manuel Gonzales Vicente. Courtesy Fundación Cidade da Cultura de Galicia.

↑ Click image to enlarge

Galician National Archive exhibition gallery entry detail. Photo: Manuel Gonzales Vicente. Courtesy Fundación Cidade da Cultura de Galicia.

↑ Click image to enlarge Galician National Archive main entry level. Photo: Manuel Gonzales Vicente. Courtesy Fundación Cidade da Cultura de Galicia.

↑ Click image to enlarge

Galician National Archive entry level looking down to reading room. Photo: Manuel Gonzales Vicente. Courtesy Fundación Cidade da Cultura de Galicia.

↑ Click image to enlarge National Archive lower level. Photo: Manuel Gonzales Vicente. Courtesy Fundación Cidade da Cultura de Galicia.

↑ Click image to enlarge

National Archive lower level view of soffit and entry above. Photo: Manuel Gonzales Vicente. Courtesy Fundación Cidade da Cultura de Galicia.

↑ Click image to enlarge

National Archive and Galician National Library seen from the southwest. Photo: Paisajes Españoles. Courtesy Fundación Cidade da Cultura de Galicia.

↑ Click image to enlarge

Galician National Archive and National Library seen from northeast. Photo: Paisajes Españoles. Courtesy Fundación Cidade da Cultura de Galicia.

↑ Click image to enlarge

Galician National Archive and National Library seen from northwest. Photo: Paisajes Españoles. Courtesy Fundación Cidade da Cultura de Galicia.

Project Facts:

Size: one million sq ft

Start: 2000

Projected completion timeline:

National Archive: December 2008

Heritage Research Center: December 2009

Biblioteca: December 2009

History Museum: March 2010

International Art Center: December 2012

Performing Arts Theatre: 2013

Total area: 173 acres

Major components of the CCG are

The Museum of Galician History (172,000 square feet)

International Art Center (135,000 square feet)

Performing Arts Theater (220,000 square feet)

Galician Library (122,000 square feet)

National Archive (86,000 square feet)

Heritage Research Center (50,000 square feet)

Surrounding the built area of the CCG is the Arboretum of Galicia: an area of gardens and native woodland, conceived as both a recreational and an educational facility.

Credits:

Architects

Eisenman Architects

Senior Partner & Principal Designer: Peter Eisenman

Partner-in-Charge: Richard Rosson

Project Director: Sandra Hemingway

Design Team – Competition: Elena Fernandez, Sebastian Mittendorfer, Selim Vural

Design Team – Schematic Design: Hernan Diaz Alonso, Matteo Cainer, Andri Gerber, Chien Ho Hsu, Bradley Khouri, Jorg Kiesow, Ceu Martinez, Paul Preissner, Jeremy Ricketts, Andy Saunders, Onur Teke, Chia Fang Wu

Design Team – Design Development: Jennifer Mujat-Kearns, Ashraf Sami Abdala, Jeremy Carvalho, Stephanie Choi, Christiane Fashek, Erkan Emre, Eric Goldemberg, Zheng Ji, Orit Kaufman, Lucia Martinez, Matias Musacchio, Mikako Oshima, Rafael Ivan Pazos, Anna Pla, Maria Sieira, Theo Spyropoulos, Yakob Sutanto, Federica Vannucchi, Raquel Vasallo, Khalid Watson

Execution Architects & Engineers of Record: UTE Andres Perea Ortega & Euroestudios, Madrid

Peter Eisenman, FAIA, Int FRIBA

Peter Eisenman, an internationally recognized architect and educator, is founder and design principal of Eisenman Architects in New York City. The firm’s current projects include the one-million-square-foot cultural complex, the City of Culture of Galicia; a railroad station in Pompei, a masterplan for the waterfront of Pozzuoli, Italy, and a media center for the University of Valencia in Gandia, Spain.

Among Eisenman Architects’ award-winning projects are the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin, the Wexner Center for the Visual Arts and Fine Arts Library at The Ohio State University in Columbus, and the Koizumi Sangyo Corporation headquarters building in Tokyo, which received National Honor Awards for Design from the American Institute of Architects. The firm’s Aronoff Center for Design and Art, the University of Phoenix Stadium for the NFL Arizona Cardinals, and City of Culture of Galicia have each been the subject of hour-long television documentaries. The firm’s work is also the subject of a number of books, including the recent monograph, Tracing Eisenman (Rizzoli, 2006).

Eisenman Architects’ unique approach to design projects is to consider the layers of physical and cultural archaeologies at each site, not just the obvious contexts and programs of a building. Rather than pursuing a particular building type, Eisenman Architects specializes in projects with exceptionally difficult siting, programmatic and/or budgetary constraints, and of strategic importance to their environment. Many of the more than 130 projects the firm has designed are the response to invited international design competitions, including innovative proposals for the Musée du Quai Branly competition in Paris and Musée des Confluences competition in Lyon. The memorial in Berlin and City of Culture were also competition entries.

In 2001 Mr. Eisenman received the Medal of Honor from the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects and the Smithsonian Institution’s 2001 Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award in Architecture. He was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement by the International Architectural Biennale in Venice in 2004. Mr. Eisenman is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Popular Science magazine named Mr. Eisenman one of the top five innovators of 2006 for the Arizona Cardinals stadium. In 2007, Yale University Press published Mr. Eisenman’s Written Into the Void: Selected Writings, 1990-2004, and in 2008 Rizzoli published his book Ten Canonical Buildings, 1950-2000, which examines the work of ten architects since 1950. Mr. Eisenman is also a dedicated educator, and has taught at many universities, including Cambridge, Princeton, Harvard, and Ohio State. He was the first Irwin S. Chanin Distinguished Professor of Architecture at The Cooper Union, in New York City, and is currently the Louis I. Kahn Visiting Professor of Architecture at Yale.