Highlights of the XII Biennial

B Congress Center, Cartagena by selgascano. Photo: Iwan Baan

Announced last May, we present highlights from the 15 winning projects and 27 finalists of the XII Biennial of Spanish Architecture, for works completed between 2011 and 2012.

The jury was led by Fuensanto Nieto and Enrique Sobejano, and included Andrés Jaque, Sol Madridejos, Rafael Aranda (of RCR), Matthias Sauerbruch and Wilfred Wang.

All photos from the Biennial web page (visit it here).

Lalín City Hall by Mansilla + Tuñón

Campo de la Cebada, Madrid

This public garden on an empty lot owned by the city has been developed by an open, non-hierarchical collective of architects, neighbors, neighborhood associations and cultural groups. It is one of several such projects in the city's center.

Subsidized housing, San Vicente del Raspeig, Alicante, by Aldredo Payá. Photo: David Frutos

Restoration, Hippodrome de la Zarzuela, Madrid by Junquera Architects

Eduardo Torroja's great thin-shell vaults, from 1936, part of Carlos Arniches and Martín Domínguez's design for the racetrack, restored by the firm that has restored other works by the architects in Madrid. The project is a functioning racetrack.

Pilgrimage Museum, Santiago de Compostela, by Manuel Gallego

Gallego: 

"The building is not indifferent to its proximity to the Cathedral." 

"The route through the exhibition also leads towards a vision of the city and the Cathedral..." 

"Intensity is the necessary precondition for architecture."

Consolidation of Roman remains at Can Tacó, by Toni Gironés

The archeological site dates from the II Century BC and is located in a natural reserve in Montornès del Vallès, Barcelona.

School for Infants, Pamplona, by Pereda Pérez Architects. Photo: Pedro Pegenaute

Cineteca, Matadero, Madrid, by Churtichaga+Quadra-Salcedo Architects

Medialab-Prado, Madrid, by Langarita-Navarro Architects

Like the Matadero complex above, this is another restoration of an old factory in Madrid's center. And like many new cultural facilities around Spain, the project lacks funding to go into operation due to the crisis. Victor Navarro is the son of architect Juan Navarro Baldeweg (see next project).

Hertzian Library, Rome, by Juan Navarro Baldeweg

Built in the former gardens of the Palacio Zuccari, which were orignally part of the terraced gardens of Lúculo, a Roman villa, a circumstance that Navarro took into account in his design.

Local government offices, Zamora, by a team lead by Alberto Campo-Baeza

I've left out some urban projects in the above listings. 

From the finalists, the following projects looked interesting:

Recreation Center, Azuqueca de Henares, Madrid, by Ábalos+Sentkiewicz

 Iñaki Ábalos is the new Chair of the architecture department at Harvard's GSD.

Susidized housing, Coslada, Madrid, by Amann, Canovas + Maruri

Lounge Tepoztlan, Morelos, Mexico, by Cadaval & Solà-Morales

Youth Factory, Mérida, by selgascano

Subsidized housing, Sa Pobla, by José Ripoll + Juan Miguel Tizón

Restoration, Goián fort and river beach, Tomiño, Pontevedra, by Pablo Galleo Picard

Pedro is the son of architect Manuel Gallego (see above).

Dreamhamar, Norway, by Ecosistema Urbano

A Night at the Races

I inaugurate my new Canon SLR camera with this photo of Eduardo Torroja's magnificent grandstands for Madrid's racetrack, the Hipodromo de la Zarzuela outside Madrid, one clear, cool July evening last week. The evening races make the most of Madrid's summer climate -- the city is at an altitude of some 860 meters or half a mile above sea level, and the refreshing nights are when you want to be out-of-doors. People come just for the bars and food, but the races were a good adrenaline-booster for this newcomer.

And here's one of the reasons I went out to see them, an exerpt from my upcoming history of Spanish modernism:

"Carlos Arniches and Martín Domínguez opened their work even further to the radical structural experiments of Eduardo Torroja in their 1934 competition-winning design for the Zarzuela Hippodrome outside Madrid. Torroja's innovations in thin-shell concrete during the Republican years claim their place beside the pioneering work of Eugène Freyssinet, Robert Maillart and Pier Luigi Nervi. The Hippodrome design is dominated by his wing-like cantilevered shading vaults over the grandstands, which span nearly 14 meters and taper to a thickness of only five centimeters. The vaults are composed of hyperboloids, surfaces which curve in two directions, and are counterbalanced by an ingenious system that involves suspending the roof vault of the betting hall, situated below the grandstands, from tension bars tied to the rear flanges of the vaults."

 Above, the view from the stands of Madrid's new skyline, with 50-story towers by Henry Cobb, César Pelli, Estudio Rubio Álvarez Sala and Foster & Partners (left to right).