Caixa Galicia Foundation (Afundación)

Caixa Galicia, a local savings bank, commissioned the building for its foundation: it was to be the flagship of the bank's eight cultural centres across Galicia and to give its art collection a place to be shown, in a 5,500 m² art and cultural centre.

The site was the last one still available in the tight urban fabric of the historic centre of A Coruña, near the old port, on a street whose façades are lined with glazed galleries that have become an emblem of the city. Work dragged on for many years because of archaeological remains found on the plot, and the building was finished in 2006. Arup was the structural and mechanical engineer and Dragados the general contractor. That same year the Royal Institute of British Architects gave it one of its European Awards.

The Fundación Caixa Galicia building is now the headquarters of Afundación, Abanca's foundation for educational, social and cultural work.

The design is by Nicholas Grimshaw and his practice, with Neven Sidor and Andrew Whalley as directors and Kirsten Lees in charge of the project. On a narrow plot, the building had to bridge the gap in scale from the port's high-rise frontage to the low-built houses at the back, while keeping to the local planning rules. The answer is an envelope whose section traces a tilted parabola: its apex projects beyond the line of the façade, then the wall falls steeply back towards the ground on a reverse slope, set back, and vanishes below ground-floor level. The gesture suggests a wave at the instant before it breaks into foam, and reinterprets in futuristic form the glazed galleries of the historic centre; the building is nicknamed "la ola de cristal", the glass wave. Tilted by more than eleven degrees, it has ten levels, four of them underground, and its façade is 72 feet (about 22 m) wide.

The main façade is a translucent skin made of two panes of glass with a thin sheet of marble sandwiched between them: it softens the daylight and at night turns the building into a kind of lighthouse. With the fabricator Seele Austria, the architects developed a system of angled horizontal panels, much like clapboards, that wrap the whole building; the rear façade combines glass, marble and aluminium honeycomb panels. A transparent holographic projection screen is hung from side to side of the main façade, parallel to the street, and helps to tie the tilted elevation in with the continuous plane of the neighbouring buildings; this glass screen also creates an outdoor cinema space near the park.

A fully glazed atrium runs along the length of the plot and up the full height of the building, gathering the circulation. Conceived as a street linking the main entrance to the rear one, it connects Cantón Grande with calle de la Estrella, where the wine district begins, and separates the exhibition areas from the administration. Glass-floored bridges cross it, and at its centre a staircase treated as a sculpture takes its cue from an apple peel. At the entrance, a glass-floored bridge crosses, at street level, a sunken sculpture court whose glazed floor covers the double-height lobby of the 286-seat auditorium, on the second basement level. Beneath the access bridge, a south-east-facing lightwell brings daylight to the underground levels, and glass lifts rise to the top.

The granite of the base that wraps the underground levels is also used for the floor of the entrance level, echoing the paving of the street. Interior finishes combine marble, maple, cherry, white leather and plaster.

The building is a sociocultural centre, holding exhibitions, performances, lectures, concerts, film seasons and workshops. It has an auditorium, a multipurpose room, an exhibition room and a small lecture hall.

The main entrance is at Cantón Grande 8, in the centre of A Coruña. Reception is open Monday to Saturday and on public holidays, except Sundays, from 9 am to 9 pm. From September to June the exhibitions are open Monday to Friday from 5 pm to 9 pm, and on Saturdays and public holidays (except Sundays) from 12 noon to 2 pm and from 5 pm to 9 pm; in July and August they open every day, with longer hours. Guided tours of the exhibitions are available.