Tenerife Centre of Dramatic Arts by GPY Arquitectos (ES)

Posted by on 03.01.2012 - Tagged as: Concrete, culture centre, GPY Arquitectos, Spain

Tenerife Centre of Dramatic Arts by GPY Arquitectos; photo by Miguel de Guzmán

GPY Arquitectos, the Spanish architectural practice established by Juan Antonio González Pérez and Urbano Yanes Tuña have completed this multifunctional, concrete-and-wood art centre located on the biggest island of the Canary Islands, Tenerife. Featuring a striking, zigzagging ‘system of ramps that relate the different scenic spaces of the building’, the multi-storey building has been developed with the intention of providing ‘a platform, an urban stage with the city and landscape as backdrop,’ where ‘the action determines the space of representation.’ 

Tenerife Centre of Dramatic Arts by GPY Arquitectos; photo by Efraín Pintos

More about the project:

‘This Centre of the Dramatic Arts presents itself to the city as a platform, as an urban stage with the city and landscape as backdrop. The interior roofed patio, generated by a three-dimensional folding of the wooden surface of the roof, is conceived as a scenic box that opens up towards the city and affirms itself as the building’s spatial reference point, a place for relationships and interchange.’

Tenerife Centre of Dramatic Arts by GPY Arquitectos; photo by Efraín Pintos

‘Defined as an inclined surface, the patio functions at the same time as an open-air auditorium and as the backbone for the pedestrian routes throughout the building, comprising a system of ramps that relate the different scenic spaces of the building via an oblique zigzag geometry. The whole building can be transformed into a space for performances, a public, open theatre, with the audience watching from the ramps, the platforms, the landings, transformed into both actors and spectators at the same time.’

Tenerife Centre of Dramatic Arts by GPY Arquitectos; photo by Joaquín Ponce de León

Tenerife Centre of Dramatic Arts by GPY Arquitectos; photo by Teresa Arozena

Tenerife Centre of Dramatic Arts by GPY Arquitectos; photo by Manuel Medina