Winner ARCHITECTURE: MUCA. Auditorium + Music Centre in Alicante
The Auditorium of Algueña and Casa Collage in Girona’s Call district win the Tile of Spain Awards.
Algueña is a small town in the interior of the province of Alicante, with a population of 2,000 and an economy based on agriculture and the marble industry.
The brilliant arquitectures of this magnific enterprise were asked to create a building that was capable of bringing together all of the different activities associated with the world of music and culture that take place in the town, together with cultural promotion in the future.
In the authors words: "Faced with this situation, together with the creation of an extensive programme associated with music and a maximum budget of 562,800 €, we initially proposed refurbishing a former Civil Guard barracks that had been empty since the 1980s, providing us with a surface area of 670 m2 that only needed adapting, and the construction of a new auditorium measuring 350 m2 and 230 seats. The second stage would involve the creation of a park with an open-air auditorium that would serve as a connecting point between the town and its area of future urban expansion".
The ceramic tiles: mother-of-pearl and rainbow effects
The choice to use ceramic tiles with a mother-of-pearl or rainbow effect was based on the idea of creating a vibrant structure that is constantly changing, either as a result of varying lighting conditions or through the movement of the observer, making the building vibrate, changing its colour, saturation and depth.
The technique used was based on choosing a porcelain base material that was resistant to freezing and guaranteed for outdoor use.
Each tile is dry pressed and then fired three times: the first bisque firing at 950ºC, then a second time to fire the white base glaze and vitrify the bisque at 1,180ºC in a fast cycle, and then a final firing to achieve the mother-of-pearl or metallic effect, at approximately 780ºC.
Only one word to describe it, Vibrant!