The expansion of the city has led to unstructured nuclei and abandoned places, industrial estates being one of them, characterized by being areas of limited use. However, the demand for new spaces for nightlife, with ample capacity and allowing natural ventilation, have also been ideal to make use of them. Thus generating a fusion of materials and industrial techniques applied to this new program.
Description of project by Tomás García Píriz Studio
On the outskirts of the city of Granada, in the fertile agricultural vacuum of the rural environment of the Vega, the periphery is shown through its other "cities": urban developments dotted and unstructured, agricultural infrastructure, contemporary ruins of abandoned farms, shopping malls and, of course, industrial parks. In one of these harsh factory spaces is located the Industrial Copera hall, a paradigmatic music center within the national scene and to which the need, as a result of COVID-19, to expand its musical offerings outdoors leads to occupy the adjacent parking lot for its conversion into a stage space.
The project arises from the fusion of the vocabulary of the garden and the peripheral polygon. Materials and techniques from the industrial field are displaced to build a musical infrastructure halfway between city and countryside: shotcrete, thermal insulation of facades, prefabricated, metal reinforcement, formwork sheets or parking lot pavements are re-signified by associating them with vines, trees and planters.
The distribution of the required program is quite simple. The lower level houses accesses and ticket offices, bar and kitchen, toilets, stage, stalls or dance floor, as well as independent access and circulation, around the perimeter, for artists and workers. An upper level provides a privileged box, a space overlooking the stage and the views. Both levels are connected by a hanging staircase that in turn acts as support furniture for the bar.
The result is a synthetic hybrid landscape, between the natural and the artificial. A landscape that allows the fertile substratum of the fertile plain to regrow again, enveloping a raised architecture that forms an inner courtyard, a crater, in which to isolate yourself from the noisy outdoor space. A protected space that is thus delimited by a dark wall that underlines the presence of the nearby vegetation and the mountains and the sky in the distance.
The garden of the copera is a scenic space within an industrial landscape. A surprising place, designed to provoke a unique musical experience, between the valley and the industry, between the natural and the artificial.
