Santiago de Compostela, La Coruña (Lot 3)

The municipality of Santiago de Compostela has been selected by the Jury of the Competition because of its aim to rehabilitate a part of its historic city centre which today is underutilised, not very accessible and badly connected to the rest of the urban fabric. This area back in the days, held a series of detached houses which would adapt to the topography all along the Rua de Caramoniña. The walls of these houses are still preserved along with a series of terraced back yards, recently retrieved and incorporated as part of the network of public spaces. The idea is to retrieve the existing constructions to destine them to temporary lodgement for students and artists, as well as connecting this area with its adjacent park of Santo Domingo de Bonaval, which today does not open towards this road. Within this park, the actions to be taken can involve both an adjacent construction to the northern wall of the park – of which only the bearing structure remains – as well as a building owned by the town council – located right next to the current Galician Contemporary Arts Centre – which today is only used as a storage area. Both these last spaces which have been mentioned, may be destined for complementary uses to those of the rehabilitated dwellings such as workshops for artists or other workspaces.

The place

Santiago de Compostela is the capital of the Autonomous Community of Galicia, belonging to the province of La Coruña. Its population is of around 96.500 inhabitants and close to 200.000 in its metropolitan area.

Compostela is an important cultural, spiritual, academic and political nucleus thanks to the importance of its cathedral which attracts pilgrims from all around the world, its University -one of the most ancient ones in Spain- and the fact that it was chosen as the political and administrative capital of the Xunta de Galicia. In 1985, it was given the title of Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO.

Gallery of images

The proposal

Bringing back to life the Rua Caramoniña (Lot 3)

The proposal must include the following aspects:

– The rehabilitation of the buildings in a state of ruin for the temporary lodgement of artists and students, being possible for there to be common living areas or common work areas. The rehabilitation will accept small adjustments regarding height and communications -as new openings- which are estimated necessary to ease and improve their use. The rehabilitation interventions will have to generally respect the pre-existing volumes and find within their design, the adequate constructive solution following the local tradition.

Given the obvious topographical difficulties in order to develop standard subsidized dwellings in this plot, the idea is to opt for more imaginative and flexible interventions in terms of use, enabling the town council to take on the different actions separately as they find the means to be able to carry out its operational management. These uses, even though they will always be within the framework of residential use of public property, will be aimed at specific groups of people who will be able to adapt best to the complex circumstances of the chosen location: students with low-income and young artists.

– The redevelopment of the callejón de Caramoniña and the improvement of the urban reading of the area as a whole, as well as its possible connection to the park of el Bonaval, working on the permeability of the limiting wall, since the park today turns its back on this narrow street.

Within the park of el Bonaval, there can be some suggestions made to intervene in the primitive construction close to the street, adjacent to the wall which closes the area, as well as in terms of the retrieval of the municipal building located at the southern entrance of the park (D) -which works today as a municipal storage area– to transform it into workshops and carry out artistic activities linked to the new students’ lodgements projected in the rua da Caramoniña.

– The reflections on possible intervention regarding the public space of the rua da Caramoniña from its beginning, at the cuesta de Santo Domingo until the intervention area. Today, this is a much degraded area with no attractive elements to it and, therefore, it does not beckon us to reach the stretch of the street which is subject of the main intervention of this Competition. The visual retrieval of the historical continuity this street had back in the days and which, today is clearly blurred by the many interventions carried out during the XX century, will be highly considered as well.