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Architects: Astigarraga y Lasarte
- Year: 2014
Text description provided by the architects. Gordailu is the building that houses the Centre for Cultural Building Heritage in Gipuzkoa. It is built in Alto de Arretxe, Irun (Gipuzkoa), and develops the architectural proposal of Astigarraga Y Lasarte - (Al Architects), awarded in February 2006 in an Ideas Competition convened for that purpose.
The purpose of the building is to house and store all items belonging to the artistic, archaeological, and ethnographic public collections not exhibited in museums. It can also house, in storage, other private collections of the historical and artistic heritage of Gipuzkoa.
It is therefore a container building, adapted to be used for storage, a building with a certain "bunker" character which seeks to achieve optimal storage conditions for the works. The building is surrounded by a metal lattice, an outer skin that is a "cage", symbolizing the idea of 'safe' or 'treasure box' from Gipuzkoa. This highly expressive formal response formalizes its image and distinguishes its unique character, at the urban crossroads between the industrial and residential fabric, where it sits.
It has three floors: Basement, Ground, and Upper levels. The Basement floor is primarily intended for access and storage of works, treatment of works (intervention and restoration workshops), general facilities, toilets and ancillary spaces. In it are the road access and vertical cores (stairs and elevators) organized through a large central distribution corridor that runs on all levels.
Access to the public area of the building (lobby, multipurpose hall, circulation, and office area) is on the ground floor, through the atrium-exterior courtyard, located in the southwest corner of the building. The rest of the plan is intended for storage, a loading dock for large vehicles, and changing rooms.
The upper floor contains storage and warehouse areas almost entirely. The roofs of the building are flat. They contain all the machinery and the various HVAC equipment, air extraction, ventilation, etc.., which are hidden behind the lattice surrounding the building.
The building has a geothermal facility to support the production of hot and cold air of the conditioning system, and a large area of solar panels integrated into the roof to generate electricity. It has been certified with the top energy rating (Type A).
