The San Bernardo Cultural Centre is located in a
rural town, on a small plot with a basically square ground plan, fifteen metres
per side.
The programme for the Centre includes an
assembly hall, which is to operate as a multipurpose space for holding
conferences, exhibitions and performances, and three workshops, also seen as
highly versatile spaces that can operate as classrooms, meeting rooms or as a
small library, depending of the needs of each moment.
In condition as a public building and meeting
place, the culture centre is integrated as a covered extension of the adjacent
San Bernardo Square while respecting the presence of the chapel of the same
name, using the void as a form of contact.
The multipurpose space, situated on the upper
level of the building, is conceived as a meeting place, in the manner of a
platform that exists in close proximity to the elements of everyday life of the
district.
This platform is covered by an alternating
system of concrete elements with a Z-shaped section that extends to the west
façade. Their discontinuous diecast shape forms a shade-filled space pierced by
the light, showing its anamorphous embodiment in the surface of the floor. The
cut-out light and shadow appears indistinctly on the ceiling, the walls or the
floor and dissolves the differences that exist between them. Under the
dispersed shadow of the lattice, opening on to both squares, is an empty, bare
space activated by light.
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