Human Evolution Complex of Burgos

The new complex gathers three buildings: the Museum of Human Evolution, the National Research Center on Human Evolution and the Exhibitions and Congress Center. These last two are separated from the museum, which occupies a central position, through two cracks that let natural light go through and that connect the riverside area with the rear urban area, recalling, just like inside the museum, the spatial sensations that the railway trench of the Atapuerca mountains arouses.

Furthermore, while the museum is characterized from the exterior by the red lozenge screen of its side facade, the National Research Center, located to the east, is clad on two sides by green panels of cut out rhombi, and the Exhibitions and Congress Center, to the west, covers part of its facade with a double skin formed by red profiles and sheet, and cut-out white sheet outlining an abstract drawing.

The complex fills an artificial slope that descends towards the river course, and to achieve this it was necessary to raise the access to the buildings five meters, thus managing to separate visitors from road traffic and offer them unobstructed views of the cathedral of Burgos. Extending the slope, and already inside the museum, the project includes an abstract recreation of the Atapuerca landscape, through sections or fragments of the ground surface, protected by a clear roof of aluminum and glass with a series of folds and that resembles the interior of a large greenhouse.

The ‘ravines’ that are tucked between the prisms display the geological and paleontological aspects of the site, reproducing the spatial experience of the excavation cuts and the strata of the territory. Behind the large prisms three levels joined by ramps display objects and installations in a more conventional manner.

The structure of the building is of concrete and a mix of steel and concrete, and and boldly asserts its presence in the exterior of the museum. The exterior cladding combines transparent and opaque glazed surfaces made of silver glass by means of a double skin system and steel panels in different colours and stone of an amber hue.