Guadalajara Theatre-Auditorium

Rojo/Fernández-Shaw arquitectos (2)
(1)
Ángel Verdasco Arquitectos
Rojo/Fernández-Shaw arquitectos
Begoña Fernández-Shaw Zulueta
Luis Rojo de Castro
Ángel Verdasco Novalvos
Ángel Verdasco Arquitectos

If we were to assert that in today's cities meaning is concentrated on surfaces, on the materiality of visible objects and their most immediate experience, we would be reproached for pessimism. However, faced with the problem of working in a contemporary city, we start from the conviction that these are the result of material rather than historical needs. They must therefore be accepted as objective facts, visions without the intention of transcending them.

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Accepting this hypothesis, we can describe urban environments as the product of the superimposition of isolated and intrusive objects. Environments built with an order in which repetition replaces hierarchical relationships, and in which the voids of an always unfinished system make a homogeneous and continuous experience impossible. This is the environment in which architects often work today. And in this description there is no drama or resignation, even if it seems like it. There is no renunciation of architecture, even if there is a renunciation of interpretation. Nor is this stance a first step in the exaltation of chaos or laissez-faire. It is not paradoxical, therefore, that we dare to defend a project precisely because it abounds in this condition, in these qualities.

Javier Azurmendi
Javier Azurmendi

An environment, a site, a perimeter, a programme..., all piled up on one side. On the other, the particular balance between the abstract and the concrete, through which architectural ideas are formulated. And the physical place, in its indefiniteness, in its inconsistency, is replaced by a state of forces, a condition of relations between the parts of the problem.

Javier Azurmendi

The Guadalajara Theatre-Auditorium approaches architecture in these terms, and tries to exploit these limitations. The project proposed is independent from its physical environment, but necessarily inscribed in it. Therefore, an alignment is a factor to be taken into account, but we can hardly extract any meaning from it, or transcend its physical relevance. The alignment, in its condition of perimeter, is constructed like the surface of a vessel that delimits and differentiates the exterior air from the interior contents. The clay surface will thus become a stress accumulator, a membrane whose equilibrium will depend on the gradient between internal and external forces. But once equilibrium is reached, the surface of the vessel will also be the boundary that delimits an independent inner environment, an area of formal relations that is self-explanatory. And, therefore, that it does not intend to exert any influence on its physical environment other than that derived from its own singularity, from its autonomy in a system of order that empowers it.

The linear and repetitive order of the minor bays, altered only by the emptying of the hall, reveals the terms in which the problem becomes visible: architecture has to start from scratch, autonomous both by arrogance and orphanhood. The project must reproduce, as in a laboratory culture, all the elements that characterise urban systems: a repetitive formal order capable of controlling the extension, the presence of a singular spatial event, a formal resolution of the counterpoint between both, a material continuity capable of controlling the whole, etc.

Foyer - Ángel Verdasco
North elevation - Rojo/Fernández-Shaw arquitectos

This architecture does not aspire to make a proposal beyond its physical limits. It is therefore not intended to influence the shape or perception of the city as a whole. However, it is proposed as an expression of the introspective character that, as a form of thought, architecture enjoys. Arranged on the surface of the city as another individual, the Guadalajara Theatre-Auditorium project relies on internal coherence to fulfil its role as architecture in such a place in such a city. Coherence that is confined and resolved in an exaggerated dependence between the abstract and the concrete: an abstract formal strategy that can only be expressed as a particular way of giving form to matter.

Javier Azurmendi

General information

Guadalajara Theatre-Auditorium

YEAR

2002

Status

Built

Option to visit

Visit by appointment

Address

St. Cifuentes, 30

19003 Guadalajara - Guadalajara

Latitude: 40.631068504

Longitude: -3.172855767

Classification

Building materials

Steel

Concrete

Wood

Built area

5001 - 20000 m²

Awards

FAD 2003

VII BEAU

Involved architects

Ángel Verdasco Novalvos

Begoña Fernández-Shaw Zulueta

Luis Rojo de Castro

Involved architectural firms

Ángel Verdasco Arquitectos

Rojo/Fernández-Shaw arquitectos

Information provided by

Rojo/Fernández-Shaw arquitectos

Website links

Ángel Verdasco Arquitectos

Rojo/Fernández-Shaw arquitectos

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Location

40.631068504 -3.172855767 13e014da-951f-48d6-936a-caa5377a4101 Built
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