El Musical Cultural Center / Eduardo de Miguel Arbonés

Architects: Eduardo de Miguel Arbonés
Location: Valencia, Valencia, Spain
Project Area: 2900.0 m2
Project Year: 2004
Photographs: Duccio Malagamba

Collaborators: Arancha Muñoz Criado, David Zaragoza Aznar, Pablo Fuertes Pérez, Antonio García Blay
Construction: OHL – Obrascón Huarte Laín, S.A

From the architect. The project is located on the premises of the former Ateneo Musical del Puerto, in the neighborhood of Cabanyal of Valencia, a building in ruins that is not viable for conservation. The new building consists of a civic center, a multipurpose hall for music, theater and public spectacles, with capacity for 400 spectators and a service area.

Almost the entire perimeter of the site on which we intervene is bound by party walls, making it impossible to establish a direct relationship with the outside.

The most noticeable feature of the intervention is the proposal of a double wall containing the circulation, and allowing natural light through. The tension of the project occurs between the communication spaces located in the gap between the two walls and the public spaces that occupy the voids created inside. The void of the foyer, meeting space between the civic center and the auditorium, is lit from above and sieved with a veil of wooden slats that slides to the floor.

The design of the auditorium is based on a solution that acoustic technicians have at best: rectangular plan with dimensions close to the double square in its length-width ratio, with substantially flat roofs and heights to ensure a volume of about ten cubic meters per viewer.

The only element that remains of the old building is the facade on Plaza del Rosario. The facade is inspired by the classic model of the Arch of Triumph, a feature that is accentuated with the introduction of a sliding wooden door (10 x 3 meters), the entire dimension of the central arch. The maintenance of this element was deemed necessary to preserve the character of the neighborhood’s most emblematic urban space.