Il Centro d’Arte Contemporanea a Cordoba di Nieto e Sobejano: un gioco di specchi e di spazi

The Contemporary Art Centre in Cordoba by Nieto and Sobejano: a mirror game to shape spaces The essay describes the creative process through which Nieto and Sobejano shape spaces. It is a complex process based on a «mirrors game», a play of multiple reflections that evokes places and architecture which they have visited and combine them with the place’s features, contemporary condition and their way of interpreting all of them. As Nieto and Sobejano say: «Our projects already exist, unconsciously, in our memory. They reappear unexpectedly, triggered by strange associations of which we are scarcely aware. At one point, a forgotten memory, an image, a sound or a phrase we recorded reappears in the process of every project: an indication that guides us toward a certain path», that suggests us the idea of the project. In Cordoba, the mosque and its space structure, defined by the repetition of a single element and continuous grafts and transformations that determines its present shape, suggest Contemporary Art Centre’s one. It is composed by a sequence of spaces, generated by repetition of an element. The element is a hexagonal space, illuminated from above by concrete cones. It takes different shapes and sizes, it is both an outdoor and an indoor space, so their combination shapes a multiple and isotropic space. This sequence of spaces is enclosed between two linear buildings that define the two main facades. These are covered, like all the other part of the building, by a single material: GRC, prefabricated concrete fiberglass panels and are perforated by several polygonal openings which make the facades plastic. The holes of river facade contain LED lamps, which generate images and texts that will be reflected on the river’s surface.