Catalizador Belvís

In Santiago de Compostela the remaining stone wall of an old dryer becomes the starting point of the contemporary cultural centre designed by Arrokabe Arquitectos.

Arrokabe Arquitectos, Catalizador Cultural Belvís, Santiago de Compostela, Spain
The intervention focuses on the rehabilitation of an old dryer that was part of a tannery, located in the grounds of the existing fleet, for a cultural center with a very open program.
The only remaining original building masonry walls were protected by a provisional cover. The continued closure of the southern masonry facade was partially demolished and the north facade was closed. In the western edge the original enclosure had disappeared while the large holes in the north facade were walled and the adjacent land was modified.
Arrokabe Arquitectos, Catalizador Cultural Belvís, Santiago de Compostela, Spain
Arrokabe Arquitectos, Catalizador Cultural Belvís, Santiago de Compostela, Spain

Arrokabe Arquitectos’ proposal recovers the volume of the original cover, gable, based on traces marking the slabs that solved the game of it with the front wall. It wasn’t about to reconstruct of the entire volume, thus emphasizing the character of the park as an open unfinished piece. For floor heights are taken as valid marking the original access and support the floor structure traces. It recovers, in part, the original topography on the north side to facilitate, now, accessibility and livability of the building.

The project supports to masonry walls a wooden volume that can be accessed from a platform and that is also a lookout over the park. This arrangement allows a permeability which establishes a direct relationship between the building and the outside and suggests various possibilities of use.


Catalizador Cultural Belvís, Santiago de Compostela, Spain
Program: cultural centre
Architects: Arrokabe Arquitectos
Client: Ayuntamiento de Santiago de Compostela
Collaborators: INOUS enxeñería global
Contractor: CPS Obras e Infraestructuras del Atlántico SL
Project manager: Francisco Fernández Novas, Bernardo Diéguez Morán
Area: 279 sqm
Completion: 2015

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