Avila Exhibition and Congress Center PHOTO: Courtesy

Patxi Mangado, professor at School of Architecture of the University of Navarra, has received the 'Chicago Athenaeum 2011', one of the most important international architecture awards, for the Avila Exhibition and Conference Center. The awarding institution chooses every three years the 30 best architectural works in the world.

"I try to make my architecture very much integrated and sensitive to history. It is a dialogue with history from a contemporary perspective," Mangado explained. According to the architect, the proportion and configuration of the Wall, considered one of the most emblematic military architecture constructions of the European Romanesque, have conditioned from the very first moment the design of the construction, as well as the height and scale.

Precisely, one aspect core topic of the Exhibition Center is that its floor leave is not at ground level, but below the level of the landscaped place from which the building is accessed, Mangado said. The purpose of this engineering game is that the structure of the building, already very horizontal, does not hide the views of the city that UNESCO considered a World Heritage Site in 1985 and, at the same time, that from the old town the Center can be seen as part of the Avilés landscape.

For Mangado, one of the most relevant factors in the integration of the Center is the use of granite, which comes from a quarry located on the border between Galicia and Portugal and whose "golden hue resembles the original of the city of Avila," he said. Through the granite, the Center is integrated into a city dense with monumentality and high artistic and architectural value.