The Catalan practice of Héctor Mendoza and Mara Partida has won the competition for ideas for the new Museum of Prehistory and Archaeology of Cantabria in Santander, The complex will encompass 18,441 square meters, 7,500 of which will go into an administrative building.

The jury, which included Fuensanta Nieto, has considered the project's uniqueness and its on-target dialogue with the urban context. The cultural facility expresses its representative role with volumes which are sensitive to the surroundings, engaging with it. Towards Calle Casimiro Sáinz, for example, it fragments into strips, like strata, with a system of stepped bars adapting to urbanistic restrictiions, forming two entrance plazas independent of the museum and the administrative building.

Crowned by a terrace overlooking the bay of Santander, the museum contains three levels: two upper floors for permanent and temporary exhibitions, and a lower one for a library, a restaurant, a store, and a multipurpose hall.