Theater in Alhama de Murcia ////

The intervention within a consolidated urban center moves from possibility to impotence. The cultural braid that crosses this type of interventions provokes the suggestion of an infinity of projects, even more so when it is a public building; but precisely the respect for this legacy makes us finally opt for consensus and the commitment of architecture with the citizenship

Urban relationship / Citizen commitment ///

The relationship of the new theatrical piece with Alhama de Murcia can not be understood, therefore, exempt from the rest of buildings of high cultural interest that the population already houses. The Castillo de la Muela with its imminent restoration and return to the enjoyment of citizens, or the new Archaeological Center Los Baños, are references for the entire Guadalentín valley; but also the nearest Casa de la Cultura or the City Hall itself make the relationship of the building with its surroundings is one of the core factors in the design of the proposal.

This relationship, which penetrates to the very heart of the building, is proposed in several stages. The most distant connections are proposed through pedestrian transits linking the cultural and administrative core of Alhama with its most significant parts. In order to create this core of public space central to the town, we have studied the entry and movement of traffic, proposing the transformation of the section of the Av. de la Sierra Espuña that currently separates the Plaza de la Constitución and the park of La Cubana, becoming "restricted traffic". This entails the diversion of the bulk of road traffic to the new Ginés Campos Avenue, allowing to lower the pressure of the automobile in the new cultural center.

The promenade and pedestrian traffic as structuring elements of urban flows.

New Central Public Space ///

The central public area that completes the Theater of Alhama de Murcia is organized into two zones, although the differentiation between the two is done gradually. The first is understood as an equipped park, and it is constituted by the current Plaza de La Constitución and the first section of the Parque de La Cubana, until the strangulation caused by the Residence and the Municipal Center for the Elderly. Beyond this narrowing we would find a park qualified as contemplative, loaded with vegetation with the disappearance of the Children's Park of Traffic, constituting a magnificent walk of arrival to the equipped zone of the park from the pockets of parking that are to the south, after the C/Los Baños.

Emblematic ≠ Aggressive ///.

A regional public building has to be contemporary, but not be an aesthetic aggression to the existing fabric. For this reason we opted for the material treatment and to show the scale of the interior spaces to generate an emblematic building that serves as a regional reference. The exposed white concrete in conjunction with the black ceramic cladding of the stage box creates an abstract color contrast that marks the theater as the head of the rest of the surrounding cultural buildings.