Culture and architecture in one place

For many years, the city's need to have a spacededicated entirely to art and culture , led to the construction of a building in which cultural exhibitions, theatre and music classes, artistic shows and fairs of all kinds predominate.

It is located in the town of Guaymallén, on a main artery with quick access from different points of the city. The building is inserted in a property of almost 30,000 m², allowing the attendance by a large audience.

The building has different rooms with armchairs, for shows, classrooms for teaching courses, large area of reception (sometimes used as an open room), changing rooms for actors, coffee, management offices and bathrooms. As a separate fact, the space has a large glass-fusion oven and another ceramic intended for work and training of craftsmen, among other cultural expressions.

The layout

Volumetrically, it develops on four levels, starting from of a main nave, with a particular shape that gives it a certain character nautical (also said to have the form of seed, in its evolutionary phase), 120 m long and 35 m wide, sustained by two groups of columns through metal connecting rods, surrounded by blocks concrete that form the sanitary columns. The total height reaches 25 m and has superior lighting and from the ends, through a floor to ceiling opening. It has a space of multiple heights and their levels are connected through ramps, stairs and elevators. This body is interrupted by others, forming new spaces, including the rooms, which are detached outwards leaving the figured out its shape and size.

the other side, in the access, stands out a large portal of concrete with a pedestrian bridge. The configuration of this is totally broken with the scheme of the main nave, predominating straight lines, hard forms and a feeling of robustness. Inside, the different spaces intended for public, artists, culture and staff are organized so that the entrances to the halls are separate.

The structure

Both its cross-linked structure and some of its facilities, have been left in sight. The combination of these with the various materials used (concrete, dry structures, steel, glass), plus its shape, give the building a postmodernist style with classic details of the high-tech movement (Center George Pompidou, Paris). There is a clear intention to show the full range of the gray in the elements, leaving the use of color for the rooms.

The exterior is reserved mostly for parking. In the vicinity of the building stand out the entrance, both pedestrian and vehicular, with large stonemasons and designed on different levels, and a Greek open-air theater, where culture is also expressed.

Source: Arquitectura Mendoza