CONTEMPORARY ARCHITECTURE ROUTE. INITIATIVES ON THE EDGE

Contemporary architecture and urban planning are still the great unknowns of the city of Santiago de Compostela. This is why we are proposing a new architectural route that encourages everyone to walk around the city and enjoy its architecture, discovering the urban spaces that have undergone transformations in recent decades.

This new route includes a sample of so-called ‘edge architectures,’ i.e.  initiatives that connect areas of the city built in different periods. We’ll talk about the relationship between architecture and landscape, the urban scale, the incorporation of green spaces into the fabric of the city, the dialogue between tradition and modernity, stone and new architectural languages.

We’ll start from outside the CGAC, where we’ll talk about the importance of this first work by Álvaro Siza Vieira in Santiago de Compostela. We’ll continue our walk through the San Domingos de Bonaval Park, a work by the Galician landscape designer Isabel Aguirre in collaboration with Álvaro Siza, followed by the residential complex of Caramoniña, by Víctor López Cotelo, and, from a distance, the intervention carried out on Monte Gaiás, with the City of Culture. Back at the CGAC, we’ll talk about the importance of small-scale interventions, with the example of Casa 2M, by the architectural studio 2es+.

CARMEN REY (Santiago de Compostela, A Coruña, 1970) holds a degree in Architecture, specialising in Building, from the University of A Coruña. She has been working as a freelancer since 2000.

An example of her commitment to the dissemination of architecture and urban planning in Santiago is her work since 2002 on the design and creation of contemporary architecture routes for different organisations such as the Galician Association of Architects, Santiago City Council, the Xunta de Galicia and the CGAC.

She has been a member of the Galician Official Association of Architects’ Culture Commission of the Santiago Delegation (2003-2007) and a representative of this institution as a member of the Technical Rapporteur Group. She has also been a member of the Historical Heritage Advisory Commission for the City Council of Santiago’s Special Plan for the Historic City of Santiago (PE-1) (2015-2023).

She is also a member of Galicia’s Architects without Borders and since March 2019, an individual member of the Spanish National Committee of ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites).