Galician Center of Contemporary Art

Alvaro Siza Vieira – The Galician Center for Contemporary Art, Santiago de Compostela (Galicia, Spain), 1988-1993

The Galician Center for Contemporary Art (Galician Center for Contemporary Art, CGAC) is a center based in Santiago de Compostela (Galicia, Spain) that aims to promote culture in Galicia through exhibition, entertainment and knowledge of trends and contemporary artistic creation.

It was designed by the Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza between 1988 and 1993, after receiving the order from the Galician administration.
It is located on the edge of the monumental city of Santiago de Compostela, in a space that it shares with the convent of Santo Domingo de Bonaval, where there is the Pantheon of illustrious Galicians and the Galego Museo Pobo.

The building is environmentally friendly and integrates the architectural spaces generated by the facades of the convent and the church of Santo Domingo de Bonaval, and at the same time exhibits a new facade for the new street.
The structure of its interior consists of a large space, where the games of the volumes of the rooms, the small sculptural details of the terrace or the presence of external light, make it all a whim for the visitor to be savored at every step for its interior . It has several exhibition rooms distributed over three levels, an auditorium, library, a cafeteria for public use and an office area for the administrative services of the Center.

It is necessary to highlight the room called "double space", between the ground floor and the permanent exhibition floor, its reception and distribution hall, the terrace, all connected together.
The materials used in the construction respect the proper and definitive materials of the city of Santiago de Compostela, stone and glass in the facades and interiors in marble and wood. The adaptation to the place where it is built and its climate, together with respect and integration with the environment, are the maxims developed by the architect in the preparation of this project.