In the small village of Algueña, the Spanish office COR & Partners has created a new cultural home dedicated to musical art. The Music Hall and House in Algueña project comes within a redevelopment project of the run-down outskirts of the village.
The first objective was to renovate the area of the old Guardia Civil barracks which had been abandoned since the 1980's. The second purpose was that of extending the existing structure to create a new auditorium and a place for teaching, art and recreation, with an open-air park and theatre.
The purpose of the work is to create a new focus to promote the future urban and cultural development of a village whose economy is mainly based on agriculture.
The new building has an extremely pure and regular design and is connected to the old building by means of a glass service block containing the staircase and accesses to the two wings of the complex.
The material chosen for the walls of the auditorium is made up of white procelain square tiles, whose brilliant white colour is capable of reflecting the sky and the clouds, creating marvellous blends of light and landscape.
This intelligent and successful use of porcelain, which communicates perfectly with the existing building and with the quarry in its immediate vicinity, won the project the Spanish ASCER award 2011 for the Architecture category.
The award was presented during Cevisama 2012, the international trade fair which was held in Valencia from 7-10 February, specialising in tiles, porcelain, cladding, bathrooms, kitchenware and building materials.
The jury made up of Benedetta Tagliabue, Andrés Jaque, João Alvaro Rocha, Mikko Heikkinen, Carlos Quintans, Toni Grilo and Ramón Monfort, gave the award to studio COR & Partners, for its capacity for exploiting the material's capacity for adapting to various uses, as well as for the architectural quality of the work. The architects were also invited to participate in the CevisamaLab Architecture Forum.
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