Winner in a competition held in the year 2008, the project for the new auditorium of Lugo, a representative building south of the historic center of the city and very close to the River Miño, is set forth as an urban facade, a mirador onto Magoi avenue, establishing an interplay of volumes with several spaces that are connected to one another and to the exterior, and surrounded by a landscaped park.

The brief asked for the construction of two auditoriums – a main one and an assembly hall –, a parking lot with 160 spaces, several multipurpose halls, cafeteria, garden, terrace, and services.

Organized in an elongated volume between two levels – the urban level of the avenue and the higher one of the gardens, with a seven meter drop –, the auditorium is characterized by a strong topographic condition, just like the Roman wall surrounding the historic quarter of Lugo. This condition permits using the site’s features to the advantage of the project and allows reducing the height of the scenic tower, configuring a continuous urban profile towards the city and placing an elevated garden of access facing East, a green and silent anteroom of the building.

The interior is organized along a functional backbone between the two transparent facades. The two concert halls – with capacity for 900 and for 300 spectators – rest on the terrain bringing the garden views and natural light all the way into the upper seating area. The garden gives access to the auditoriums, and the avenue leads to the exhibition gallery. The lobby is a tall, continuous space that connects the different itineraries through the building and articulates the voids of varying heights, creating gathering spaces.

The aluminum roof folds to wrap the different spaces, each one with the necessary height, and traces a broken ridge line that prevents a monolithic image. Like a gallery, sometimes translucid and sometimes transparent, the silkscreen printed glass with different degrees of opacity gives the building a bright character and wraps up its most urban facade, representing its institutional role as a space open to citizens. The building offers a flat and continuous image towards the city, with different heights, and a fragmented small-scale image towards the garden, where it reveals an uneven silhouette that barely exceeds the tree tops.