Galicia’s culture city

, 13 January 2011
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The Hejduk towers are probably the most iconic element of the new Galicia cultural city and also a new symbol for this beautiful northern land. The new complex architectural environment under construction is on the Gaiás mountain near Santiago de Compostela (Spain)…

It was designed by architect Peter Eisenman and office, following an architectural design competition hosted by the Parliament of Galicia in February 1999. The buildings are an extreme challenge to construct as the design of them makes them look like rolling hills with high degree contours. Nearly every window of the thousands that are part of the external façade has its own custom shape. It is set to be complete next year although it was inaugurated by the Spanish prince last week, (having taken more than a decade to complete).The building site has also become the base for the development of a public transparency urban experiment by the Spanish architect and artist Andrés Jaque. With Jaque’s 12 Actions to Make the Cidade da Cultura Transparent, the building site was equipped with devices that make the political implications and ecological extension of the construction works understandable for the general public.
Objective of the city? Obvious but always essential: to preserve the national & local heritage and memory while offering a series of services and activities for the study, investigation, experimentation, production & diffusion (uhhhh too many things!!) of all arts (music, theatre, dance, cinema, visual arts, communication and modern arts).

Some numbers… 148k squared meters, 11 years and more than 400 million €. For now only 2 of the 5 buildings are open (Library & Archives) the rest… hopefully next year.

More info on the official website, and here’s a couple of vids (unfortunately in Galician, but you see the nice images 😉

Tokyo Train

17 January 2011

The Hejduk towers are probably the most iconic element of the new Galicia cultural city and also a new symbol for this beautiful northern land. The new complex architectural environment under construction is on the Gaiás mountain near Santiago de Compostela (Spain)…

It was designed by architect Peter Eisenman and office, following an architectural design competition hosted by the Parliament of Galicia in February 1999. The buildings are an extreme challenge to construct as the design of them makes them look like rolling hills with high degree contours. Nearly every window of the thousands that are part of the external façade has its own custom shape. It is set to be complete next year although it was inaugurated by the Spanish prince last week, (having taken more than a decade to complete).The building site has also become the base for the development of a public transparency urban experiment by the Spanish architect and artist Andrés Jaque. With Jaque’s 12 Actions to Make the Cidade da Cultura Transparent, the building site was equipped with devices that make the political implications and ecological extension of the construction works understandable for the general public.
Objective of the city? Obvious but always essential: to preserve the national & local heritage and memory while offering a series of services and activities for the study, investigation, experimentation, production & diffusion (uhhhh too many things!!) of all arts (music, theatre, dance, cinema, visual arts, communication and modern arts).

Some numbers… 148k squared meters, 11 years and more than 400 million €. For now only 2 of the 5 buildings are open (Library & Archives) the rest… hopefully next year.

More info on the official website, and here’s a couple of vids (unfortunately in Galician, but you see the nice images 😉

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