ing and ataurique decorations, or the rules and narrative rhythms implicit in the po-

Centre
ems and tales of Islamic tradition.
Like those literary structures which include a story within another story, within yet
another… - a story without an end – we conceived the project as starting with a
system, a law generated by a repeating geometric pattern, originating in a hexag-
onal shape, which in turn contains three different types of rooms, Like a combina-
torial game, the permutations of these three areas generate sequences of different
spaces which possible can come to create a single exhibition area.

The artists’ workshops on the ground floor and the laboratories on the upper floor
are located adjacent to the exhibition halls, so the point where there is no strict dif-
ference between them: artistic works can be exhibited in the workshops while the
exhibition halls can also be used as areas for artistic production. The assembly
room – the black box – is designed as a stage area suitable for theatrical produc-
tions, conferences, film screenings, or even for audiovisual exhibitions.
Cultural

El Croquis 136/137

Site Plan Internal perspectives

Architecture nourishes itself constantly from images hidden in our memory, ideas
NIETO Y SOBEJANO

which become sharp and clear and unexpectedly mark the beginning of a project.
Perhaps this is why the echo of the Hispano-Islamic culture which is still latent in
Cordoba has subconsciously signified more than a footnote in our proposal. In the
face of the homogeneity which our global civilization imposes in all aspects of life,
the Centre of Contemporary art aspires to interpret a different western culture, going
beyond the cliché of this expression used so frequently.
Distrusting the supposed efficacy and flexibility of a neutral and universal container
commonly used nowadays, let us image a building closely linked to a place and to a
far memory, where every space is shaped individually, to a time which can transform
itself and expand in sequences with different dimensions, uses and spatial qualities.

We have always been admirers of the hidden geometric laws through which those
C4

artists, artisans and master builders of a remote Islamic past were capable of creat-
ing a multiple and isotropic space within the Mosque, a building facetted with vaults
1 and muqarna windows, permutations of ornamental motifs with lattice windows, pav- 2
Plan view of model Permutations of facade