Convention Centre of Castilla y León

The Vaguada de la Palma is a natural topographic limit of the old city, a limit that in our site was reaffirmed by the retaining wall built with materials from the old Roman wall. The consideration of the plot in the perimeter of the walled area and the appearance of this walled city centre, was the starting point, a simulation of the image that the future conference center was to have. The new buildings preserve the function of physical limit, in which an access street has been opened and a propylaeum-shaped threshold has been created. As a result, the new building can be characterized in three ways: as a base for the old city; as a wall construction that clearly draws attention to its profile in the perimeter under the city; and as a passageway and lobby between the consolidated high city nucleus and the park of La Vaguada. The project has been developed in two visible bodies, joined at the ground floor, that enclose the intermediate square. The auditoriums are in the large body. The smaller body, just out into the open air. Independent entrances from the square allow for ma very flexible use of the centre. As a result, the seminar rooms and an exhibition hall can be used independently or together, as desired, with the Congress Centre and the large exhibition hall that is connected to the lobby of the auditoriums.

Volumetrically emphatic and silent, this convention center forms part of the base which maintains the monumental profile of the city. A solid body and an airy one give shape to the project. The first of them, a box inside another box, opens with great segmental arches. The second is composed in one part by a volume defined by a boundary of columns supporting a roof, and in the other, an enclosed outdoor space with two facetoface wedges of stands. Topping off the auditorium is the most emblematic element of the set: a portion of sphere perforated with an oculus and separated from the walls by luminous fissures, among which it seems to float weightlessly. Yet the conciliatory mood is not abandonned; the great airy and light shell is hidden inside the solid prism so as not to compete with neither the domes of the churches nor their towers.

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