Architecture is always feeding on images concealed in our memory, ideas that at

some point become clear and unexpectedly mark the outset of a project. Perhaps for
this reason the echoes of the Hispano-Muslim culture still present in Córdoba have
unconsciously meant more than a marginal note in our project. In contrast to the
homogeneity that globalized civilization seems to impose in all contexts, the
Contemporary Art Centre aims to interpret a different Western character, overcoming
the clichés of that common expression.
Just like those literary structures that include one story within another—a never-
ending story—we took a system as starting point for the project, a law generated by
a “self-similar” geometric pattern, originated in a hexagonal form, which contains at
once three different types of halls, of one hundred fifty, ninety, and sixty square
meters. Like a combinatorial game, the permutations of these three precincts
generate sequences of different halls that can eventually configure a single
exhibition space. The artists’ workshops on the ground floor and the labs in the
upper level are contiguous to the exhibition halls, to the point that there is no strict
differentiation between them: at the workshops it will be possible to hold exhibitions
while using the halls for artistic production spaces. The auditorium—the “black
box”—is conceived as a scenic space for theatre performances, conferences, and
films, or as a unique space for audio-visual exhibitions.

The Contemporary Art Centre in Córdoba is not a centralized building: the

center moves from one space to another, it is everywhere. It is configured as a
sequence of precincts linked to a public space, onto which all the different
functions of the building flow. Conceived as a place for interaction, it is a
common space in which one can express and exchange ideas, see an
installation, access exhibitions, visit the cafeteria, spend time in the media
library, wait for a performance to begin in the black box, or maybe simply look
out onto the Guadalquivir River.
The materials help to achieve the art factory character pervading the entire project.
In the interior, bare walls, slabs of concrete, and continuous paved flooring establish
a spatial structure susceptible to being transformed individually through different
interventions. A network of electric, digital, audio-visual, and lighting infrastructures
ease access to sockets and connections throughout the building. On the exterior, the
building asserts its presence by means of a single material: prefabricated concrete
fiberglass panels, or GRC. These clad opaque and perforated façades, along with
the flat roofs and the sloping ones of the halls. The industrialized conception of the
system, as well as the waterproofing and insulation properties and the lightness of
the material, help to guarantee the precision and rationality of its execution, being
part of the combinatorial concept governing the whole project. The façade toward
the river, a true mask that activates the exterior façade of the building, it is
conceived as a screen perforated by several polygonal openings with LED-
type monochromatic maps behind them. Images and text, generated by
computer-aided video signals, will be reflected on the river’s surface and enable
installations specifically conceived for the place.
The Façade was transformed into a light and media display without fundamentally changing its solid
appearance as envisioned by Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos. It was designed to deliver a tactile and solid
appearance in daytime while it turns into a unique and dynamic communication wall that reacts very
specifically to the architecture at night.

Starting point for the media façade was an analysis of the significant inner structure of the building, which is
made up of a tessellated (self-repeating) pattern of polygonal rooms. This inner motif is translated to form a
characteristic outer topography on the façade, a system of irregularly shaped, hexagonal indentations of varying
density, size and scale.

There are 1,319 of these pre-fabricated “bowls” scattered over the 100m long façade made of fiberglass-
reinforced cement (GRC). Each of the bowls is serving as a reflector for an integrated artificial light source. By
controlling the intensity of each lamp individually, the bowls turn the façade into the envisioned low-resolution grey
scale display.

Three different scales of bowls are employed and distributed in huge patterns over the total façade, thereby subtly
echoing the building’s architectural elements. Additionally, each bowl appears to be unique in shape and size; and
their distribution appears to be irregular.

Only the distribution density stays consistent.

Analogously to the eye’s retina, this composition allows the definition of areas of varying density or “sensitivity” on
the façade. This analogy offers a certain artistic freedom: the resolution of the displayed images can stay low,
fitting the blown-up scale of the screen, creating a mode of display in which the motifs are hinted at, rather than
unambiguously presented.

During the day, the façade shows a three-dimensional landscape with no sign of being a media facade. Additionally,
this tectonically modulated surface topography is characterized by a playful composition of light and shadow that
constantly changes with the movement of the sun.

The thorough immersion of the “pixel-bowls” – like negative impressions – in the volume of the façade turns the
architectural scheme itself into a digital information carrier.
ARCHDAILY

The designers took their inspiration from the traditional Islamic architecture, and using a
nonlinear web of hexagons reminiscent of a bee hive, they planned each room with
several openings towards the others. The basic shape from which they started was the
hexagon and by repeating the pattern they created an overall system of rooms with six sides
either of which can host an event or an exhibition.
The complex geometry might seem chaotic at first and the designers try to increase this
impression through the use of exposed concrete throughout the building which along with the
regular punctures makes the space look like an abandoned factory or warehouse. The neutral
space can thus become anything the artist wants.

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 artists, artisans and master builders of a remote Islamic past
were capable of creating a multiple and isotropic space within the Mosque, a building
facetted with vaults and muqarna windows, permutations of ornamental motifs with
lattice windows, paving and ataurique decorations, or the rules and narrative rhythms
implicit in the poems 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
hexagonal shape, which in turn contains three different types of rooms, with 150
m², 90 m², and 60 m². Like a combinatorial game, the permutations of these three
areas generate sequences of different spaces which possibly 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, to the point where there is no strict
difference 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
productions, conferences, film screenings, or even for audio-visual exhibitions.

The Centre of Contemporary Art is not a centralised organism: its centre moves
from one area to another, it is everywhere. It is designed as a sequence of rooms
linked to a public walkway, where the different functions of the building come
together. Conceived as a crossroads and meeting place, it is a communal area for
exhibitions and exchange of ideas, to view an installation, see exhibitions, visit
the café, use the mediateque, wait for the start of a show in the black box, or
perhaps gaze at the Guadalquivir River.

The materials will contribute to suggest the character of an art factory which pervades
the project. In the interior, walls and slabs of concrete and continuous concrete floors,
establish a spatial area capable of being transformed individually using different forms of
intervention. A network of electrical, digital, audio and lighting infrastructure creates the
possibility of multiple views and connections everywhere.

Outside, the building aspires to express itself through one material: GRC prefabricated
panels that at the same time clad opaque and perforated façades, or make up the flat
and sloping roofs of the halls. The industrialised concept of the system as well as the
conditions of impermeability, insulation and lightness of the material, contribute to
guarantee the precision and rationality of its execution but also plays a part in the
combinatory concept which governs the whole project.

The facade onto the river, a true mask that protagonist the exterior facade of the
building, is conceived as a screen perforated by several polygonal openings with
LED-type monochromatic maps behind them. With an appropriate computer
program, video signals will generate images and texts that will be reflected on the
river’s surface and enable installations specifically conceived for the place..
During the day, natural light will filter through the perforations and penetrate the
interior covered walkway.

In the Centre for Contemporary Art, artists, visitors, experts, researchers and the public,
will meet as in a contemporary zouk, without an obvious spatial hierarchy. It will be a
centre for creative artistic processes which will link closely the architectural space with
the public: an open laboratory where architecture attempts to provoke new modes of
expression.
Some of the most recent artistic proposals linked to the most recent technologies appear
to move away from materiality and submerge themselves in a virtuality disconnected
from a concrete place, but perhaps through it, disagreeing with this interpretation –
which has become a commonplace – we are convinced that the building itself, the
Guadalquivir river, the present and the past of Cordoba, will not simply be a casual
circumstance but – as it has been for us as well – will be the start of a dialogue,
agreement, or perhaps rejection

DESIGN BOOM
The black box is a multi-functional room designed for theatrical productions,
conferences, film screenings or exhibitions. artist’s workshops on the ground floor
and laboratories on the second level – the program of creation – is located next to that of
exhibition with such little difference that one blends into the other and promotes the fusion of
functions. The same laws that govern the porous exterior envelope are then applied to three-
dimensional space. the ‘communicative lighting facade’ designed in collaboration
with realities: united employs a series of LED emitters and the varying size of voids to
illuminate different patterns to the exterior, from pure geometric forms to more complex
illustrations. They also allow controlled amounts of natural light to enter the structure
projected on internal glass partitions, reflecting the nature of space through light.

ARCHITECT MAGAZINE

To counter this modern orthodoxy, the museum’s roof is a simultaneously

exuberant and rational expression that follows the hex-based patterning,
but with an added dimension. “These rooms generate the geometry of the
roof, which is a direct translation of the hexagonal floor plan,” Sobejano
says. The resulting 18 faceted, cast-concrete light shafts form a series
of skylights that spring above or cleave through the roof plane. “The
skylights are sometimes very compressed, low, or very high, thus
producing a changing spatial sequence inside,”

The carved light silos were cast in place using wooden forms. During
the three-year construction period, up to 100 workers were on site daily,
due in large part to the complexity of the center’s roof and ceiling. The
roof’s voids and berms, which the designers called “bowls” or
“pixels,” range in span from approximately 5 feet to 16 feet, and in
depth from roughly 5 feet to 26 feet. Rainwater running down the
skylight shafts collects in perimeter gutters at their base, and drains
into leaders inside building chases.

From the centre’s roof, the hex-based openings transition into an

assortment of polygonal perforations that cascade across the exterior walls
like lace, allowing daylight to dapple the interior. Taken holistically, the
Contemporary Art Centre’s hex-derived patterns appear almost viral—and
virile, no less, suggestive of their own reproduction. It’s evident why the
designers describe the museum façade as “a true mask that protagonizes
the exterior.”

Made from industrial but visually light GFRC panels and illuminated
with monochromatic LEDs, the exterior thus doubles as a canvas.
Artists transform it, broadcasting their work in light and color to the facing
city and onto the surface of the adjacent river below. “The relationship
with the river is self-conscious, and creates an ancillary canvas as big
as the building itself,” Nieto says. This may lead visitors to wonder:
Which one is the work of art?
ARCH2
sought to revaluate the concept of the supposed efficacy and flexibility of a
neutral universal ‘container’ and replace it with a form where space is shaped
individually and can transform and expand itself in sequences with different
dimensions, uses and spatial qualities. For the design, the firm studied the multiple
and isotropic spaces within the Mosque, a building facetted with vaults and muqarna
windows, and other such artistic devices used within the Hispano-Islamic culture. The
project was first conceived as a system of laws generated by a repeating
hexagonal pattern, a traditional Islamic motif, which contained three different
types of rooms, whose sequences of different spaces generated a single
exhibition space.

Within the finished design and construction of the centre, the hexagonal shape is
present as a series of cavities clustered and distorted across two elongated
rectangular volumes. The largest of the hexagonal spaces, deemed the ‘black
box’, is an assembly room designed as a stage area suitable for theatrical
productions, conferences, film screenings, or audio-visual exhibitions. The
exhibition spaces occupy the other various hexagonal forms and feature a dramatic
concrete light-well. Artists’ workshops are on the ground floor and the
laboratories are on the upper floor adjacent to the exhibition halls with the
intention that artistic works can be exhibited in the workshops while the
exhibition halls can also be used as areas for artistic production.

Around the outside of the building, the hexagonal motif is repeated along the glass
reinforced concrete-panelled facades, creating indentations and perforations, behind
which are LED-type monochromatic maps. With an appropriate computer program, video
signals will generate images and texts that will be reflected on the adjacent river’s surface
and enable installations specifically conceived for the centre. During the day, natural light
can filter through the screen and penetrate the interior covered walkway.
The materials chosen for this project contribute to the idea of an art factory, with the
interior walls, floors and ceilings being made out of concrete, and the exterior cladded
in GRC prefabricated panels. Using concrete for the interior establishes a spatial area
that is capable of being transformed individually using different form of intervention.
This spatial relationship emphasizes the initial concept of eliminating the idea of a
centralized organism and instead creates a sequence of linked rooms without an
obvious spatial hierarchy. The art center is deemed more as a crossroads and a
meeting place, a communal area for exhibitions and exchange of ideas, to view an
installation, see exhibitions, visit the café, wait for the start of a show in the theater, or
gaze at the river. Perhaps what is the most important conclusion this design comes to is its
intended purpose as a centre for creative artistic processes where architecture attempts to
provoke new modes of expression.
DEZEEN

Rooms and surfaces are generated from a complex web of hexagons at this contemporary arts
centre

Inspired by the patterns of traditional Islamic architecture, Nieto Sobejano planned the building as
a non-linear sequence of connecting rooms that open out to one another in a variety of
configurations.

The six-sided rooms create a meandering trail through the building and each room can be
used as either an exhibition area or as a space for art production. Every wall and surface is
concrete, intended to evoke the atmosphere of a factory or warehouse.
"Walls and slabs of concrete and continuous concrete floors establish a spatial area capable of
being transformed individually using different forms of intervention," the architects add.
Hexagonal funnels stretch down from the roof to channel natural light into concentrated
spaces. Meanwhile, tiny perforations bring narrow beams of light through the facade.
From the exterior, these perforations make up another pattern of hexagons that face out
towards the adjacent Guadalquivir River. At night, LED lights illuminate these shapes to
present a glowing pattern across the water.
As well as exhibition space, the building also contains artists' workshops, laboratories and
an auditorium for theatrical performances, films screenings and lectures.
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.