LABORAL - CENTRO DE ARTE Y CREACIÓN INDUSTRIAL

THE CENTRE

Artistic Project

Architecture

During its construction, the building designed by Luis Moya as an orphanage for miners' children, was altered and expanded when it was decided to house a vocational training centre here. This expansion led to the construction, in the North-East corner of the huge complex, and outside the central rectangle, of six sections to house vocational training workshops although eventually they were never used for that purpose.

Moya admitted to have drawn his inspiration for the design of these additional spaces from the Caracalla Baths in Rome, conceiving some concrete braced vaults in a descending North-South layout, in such a way that it was possible to place in each stretch a large North-facing window to ensure natural lighting. The base module, a 19.20 m. high and 9.60 m. long vault, is repeated indefinitely, covering with an identical constructive system a large area of what originally was the slope of a hill of the Somió Valley. Notwithstanding the rigidity of the plan, the adaptation of the construction to the topography produces typological variety, with spatially different premises and the appearance of sometimes stunning structural solutions.

Among them, those located in the North-East end of the workshops and the old ball court were chosen to house the Laboral Art and Industrial Creation project. The architect from Asturias Andrés Diego Llaca, author of the refurbishment project, opted to complete the existing buildings with a construction volumetrically alluding to the never completed original project. This new space makes up the main access lobby to the Centre.

With two levels, mutually related through a large empty space and connected with a stair and a ramp, it smoothly connects the level of the external access and the spacious exhibition galleries of the centre, located on a lower level. This will house the ticket offices, the cloakroom and the shop. As could not be otherwise, the exhibition spaces is central, with 4.094 square metres destined for that purpose distributed in six galleries, two of them with in excess of 1000 square metres. An area of almost 700 square metres of the complex will be allocated to workshops and laboratories. After all laboral is an exhibition venue but also a centre for research, production, training and application in the field of visual arts and industrial creation.

The section located at the North end of Universidad Laboral, until recently used as a boilermaking workshop, will be the large 1113 square metres Cafélab, a multipurpose space that is both café-restaurant and a space for performances, live electronic music or installation and projections by audiovisual artists. It has two accesses to favour this flexible use: one from the Art Centre, the other from the outside.