Ensamble – Musical Studies Centre
The project of the Music Studies Centre in Santiago de Compostela is located in the Vista Alegre property, one of the most relevant green areas near the old quarter of Santiago, the same plot of land where the SGAE Central Office was built. Surrounded by other buildings linked academic activities and research practices, it is dedicated to postgraduate studies for musical improvement, intended for the training of the Galician Orchestra musicians. The perception of the building at different scales defines different levels of comprehension. From the distance, the building lets itself fall on the land. It sticks, without any continuity, to a carpet of green grass, cutting out its silhouette in the space of the garden in a strong definitive way, like a rock with cubic will. If we look from a middle distance point, we gaze the border, the limit that before shaped an almost perfect form, leads to the lack of definition; the trace of a broken line appears, distorting edges, and a superficial vibration of light, material and shadow appears, fixed to a rhythm of seven parts. We move closer and the shape breaks; the pieces jump, expressing their abrasive materiality and defining holes which provide the constructive scales of the building.
The expression of the project comes from the contraposition and duality that, in the scale, the timbre and its materials, build the space reaching complexity. Distortion, superimposed to harmony, evokes the purity of both spatial conditions bringing about interest both in material and spatial terms. Beyond canons, the building wants to develop architectonic concepts within a simple composition and geometry, taking in the spatial resonance from the echoes of its limits, that in the outside are represented by the oak wood, the garden, the water and the Galician light, and in the interior by the smooth stone surfaces that configure the space. The aims on the project are a deeply rooted to Galician architecture, considering its cultural and atmospheric particularities, emphasizing the memory of the place. It seems that the building was always there.
