Atarazanas Cultural Center
“Atarazanas” (Former dockyards) are, with no doubt whatsoever, the most imposing civic space of the city. There is probably not another interior space more solemn, representative and, at the same time, unknown than the old dockyards, attached to a fragment of the islamic wall.
Our project assumes the historical character of the land fills that, from the begining of the XVI century, were being accumulated inside this space reaching the current level in response to the evolution and transformation of the city. The consecutive stratums that buried the starts of the archs five meters below of the present level don´t diminish the perception of this intense and exciting space. On the contrary, they distinguish it, becoming a differentiating attribute.
This inner space, fluent and continuous, enclosed by parallel lines of robust archs that shelter heavy vaults made of brick or fragile glass covers, offers multiple perspectives, conforming an inmense and infinite space, unique. The continuity of the space and the coincidence between its level and the street´s provides the principal potential of the monument and explains what the relationship towards the city might be.
Nowadays, when there is a ruthless substraction of the public areas due to privatization and commercialization, Atarazanas Cultural Centre could perfectly represent an excellent opportunity offering the city of Seville a cultural covered plaza, a vast cultural and multipurpose space, with the aim of becoming the encounter point between the citizens and the world of art and knowledge.
For that reason, our proposal suggests resolving the rest of the program of the Cultural Centre in the available spaces on the upper levels of the building, with the objective of maintaining the existing ground floor intact, only opening the façade of Dos de Mayo Street, intensifying the relationship between the building and the city, between the civic and cultural life of Seville.
