Reclaiming a former ferry car park on the waterfront of Santander in northern Spain, Centro Botín is designed by architect Renzo Piano, whose past projects include the Shard skyscraper in London, and is the permanent home for the art, cultural and educational programmes of one of country’s most important cultural foundations.
The Botín Foundation is a philanthropic organisation that was set up in 1964 by the aristocratic Botín family, the owners of Santander bank. It has been running an arts and education programme and growing a permanent art collection for more than two decades.
Centro Botín opened in June and is set in the historic Pereda Gardens, which have been restored and extended in a project led by landscape designer Fernando Caruncho in collaboration with the Renzo Piano Building Workshop.
The art centre features extensive exhibition areas, workshop spaces, classrooms, an auditorium, a restaurant and a roof terrace. Environmental sustainability is an important part of the project, with energy consumption reduced through chillers and heat pumps in the basement and by exchanging heat with sea water.
The building, raised above the ground and accessible to visitors via stairs and lifts, frames views of the city and the sea, and is covered with ceramic discs that reflect the light and landscape around.
How does Centro Botín integrate into the city of Santander?
Benjamin Weil: The location of the building is key to how it has been designed and how it functions. We are in the centre of the city, but the land where the building stands was not public for a long time – it used to be the parking lot for a ferry company. The gardens that surround the centre used to be about half the size and were separated from the waterside by a road. Building the art centre resulted in urban planning the whole area. In addition to the building, we had to dig a tunnel to house the coastal road so it did not cut off access to the water and to make room for the garden to be extended.
Does such a modern building not stick out?
The city is built on a grid, and one of those lines leads straight to the entrance of the new building. To preserve the view of the waterfront and integrate into the environment, the centre has been built on stilts, lifting it by more than six metres, so the building appears to nestle in the trees surrounding it. Even the dimensions of the pillars have been chosen to resemble those of tree trunks. The idea of the building having a dynamic relation to the landscape is important. The venue is entirely above ground and split into halves, with the uniting point of the two sections glass, so it is almost imperceptible. Piano chose to cover the building in more than 270,000 glazed white ceramic discs, which reflect the changing colours of the sea and the sky, thus altering its appearance subtly.
How did the new centre come about?
Centro Botín resulted from the need for more space and visibility for the collection of art that the Botín Foundation holds, but the programme also integrates the cultural and educational activities that the foundation encapsulates.
What impact will it have?
We are working with the local authorities to ensure it has a strong impact for the region. The founding mission of the Botín Foundation was to give more cultural and educational content to the region, and to stimulate social and economic growth. The new building is an important opportunity to do so. In addition to working with regional and national institutions from the arts and education sectors, we are also building an agreement with Yale University’s emotional intelligence department to investigate and develop ways for the arts to stimulate creative thinking.
How does the Centro Botín promote the arts further?
The new building is the continuation of a process that started almost 30 years ago. The Botín Foundation was set up in 1964 and by the 1980s it had gained a strong presence in the visual arts, which intensified in the early 1990s with the launch of two programmes. The first was a series of summer workshops, inviting a famous artist to work with younger artists, which resulted in extensive exhibitions and acquisitions by the foundation. The second was eight visual art grants regularly awarded to young artists. The recipients are supported for about a year and the foundation acquires work from the resulting shows. Both programmes continue to the present day and make up the core of the foundation’s vast collection of contemporary art, which includes work by Tacita Dean, Gabriel Orozco and Joan Jonas.
What is the exhibition programme like?
The opening show is by the German artist Carsten Höller – this is his first major exhibition in Spain. In addition to the core grant programmes, there is a third important part of the programming that will now have a permanent home – over the past seven or so years the foundation has been involved in academic research on Spanish master drawings. As a result of this, the other opening exhibition is a major show of drawings by the 18th-century Spanish master Francisco Goya, which has been put together in partnership with the Prado museum in Madrid.
Will there be any special commissions?
Yes, we started working with Cristina Iglesias before she even had directed a workshop for us. Her new work is in the gardens around the centre and plays with the idea of the presence of water, referencing the building’s waterside location. As the tide rises the five wells that Iglesias has placed around the gardens capture seawater, and when it recedes it leaves beautiful reliefs behind.
Benjamin Weil is the artistic director of Centro Botín
Main funder Botín Foundation
Architect Renzo Piano
Landscape designer Fernando Caruncho
Exhibition ends Carsten Höller, until 10 September; Agility and Audacity: Goya’s Drawings, until 24 September; Art at the Turn of the Century, until 31 January 2018
Admission Adult €8; child €4; Cantabria region residents can register for an unlimited pass for €2
The Botín Foundation is a philanthropic organisation that was set up in 1964 by the aristocratic Botín family, the owners of Santander bank. It has been running an arts and education programme and growing a permanent art collection for more than two decades.
Centro Botín opened in June and is set in the historic Pereda Gardens, which have been restored and extended in a project led by landscape designer Fernando Caruncho in collaboration with the Renzo Piano Building Workshop.
The art centre features extensive exhibition areas, workshop spaces, classrooms, an auditorium, a restaurant and a roof terrace. Environmental sustainability is an important part of the project, with energy consumption reduced through chillers and heat pumps in the basement and by exchanging heat with sea water.
The building, raised above the ground and accessible to visitors via stairs and lifts, frames views of the city and the sea, and is covered with ceramic discs that reflect the light and landscape around.
How does Centro Botín integrate into the city of Santander?
Benjamin Weil: The location of the building is key to how it has been designed and how it functions. We are in the centre of the city, but the land where the building stands was not public for a long time – it used to be the parking lot for a ferry company. The gardens that surround the centre used to be about half the size and were separated from the waterside by a road. Building the art centre resulted in urban planning the whole area. In addition to the building, we had to dig a tunnel to house the coastal road so it did not cut off access to the water and to make room for the garden to be extended.
Does such a modern building not stick out?
The city is built on a grid, and one of those lines leads straight to the entrance of the new building. To preserve the view of the waterfront and integrate into the environment, the centre has been built on stilts, lifting it by more than six metres, so the building appears to nestle in the trees surrounding it. Even the dimensions of the pillars have been chosen to resemble those of tree trunks. The idea of the building having a dynamic relation to the landscape is important. The venue is entirely above ground and split into halves, with the uniting point of the two sections glass, so it is almost imperceptible. Piano chose to cover the building in more than 270,000 glazed white ceramic discs, which reflect the changing colours of the sea and the sky, thus altering its appearance subtly.
How did the new centre come about?
Centro Botín resulted from the need for more space and visibility for the collection of art that the Botín Foundation holds, but the programme also integrates the cultural and educational activities that the foundation encapsulates.
What impact will it have?
We are working with the local authorities to ensure it has a strong impact for the region. The founding mission of the Botín Foundation was to give more cultural and educational content to the region, and to stimulate social and economic growth. The new building is an important opportunity to do so. In addition to working with regional and national institutions from the arts and education sectors, we are also building an agreement with Yale University’s emotional intelligence department to investigate and develop ways for the arts to stimulate creative thinking.
How does the Centro Botín promote the arts further?
The new building is the continuation of a process that started almost 30 years ago. The Botín Foundation was set up in 1964 and by the 1980s it had gained a strong presence in the visual arts, which intensified in the early 1990s with the launch of two programmes. The first was a series of summer workshops, inviting a famous artist to work with younger artists, which resulted in extensive exhibitions and acquisitions by the foundation. The second was eight visual art grants regularly awarded to young artists. The recipients are supported for about a year and the foundation acquires work from the resulting shows. Both programmes continue to the present day and make up the core of the foundation’s vast collection of contemporary art, which includes work by Tacita Dean, Gabriel Orozco and Joan Jonas.
What is the exhibition programme like?
The opening show is by the German artist Carsten Höller – this is his first major exhibition in Spain. In addition to the core grant programmes, there is a third important part of the programming that will now have a permanent home – over the past seven or so years the foundation has been involved in academic research on Spanish master drawings. As a result of this, the other opening exhibition is a major show of drawings by the 18th-century Spanish master Francisco Goya, which has been put together in partnership with the Prado museum in Madrid.
Will there be any special commissions?
Yes, we started working with Cristina Iglesias before she even had directed a workshop for us. Her new work is in the gardens around the centre and plays with the idea of the presence of water, referencing the building’s waterside location. As the tide rises the five wells that Iglesias has placed around the gardens capture seawater, and when it recedes it leaves beautiful reliefs behind.
Benjamin Weil is the artistic director of Centro Botín
Project data
Cost €80m Main funder Botín Foundation
Architect Renzo Piano
Landscape designer Fernando Caruncho
Exhibition ends Carsten Höller, until 10 September; Agility and Audacity: Goya’s Drawings, until 24 September; Art at the Turn of the Century, until 31 January 2018
Admission Adult €8; child €4; Cantabria region residents can register for an unlimited pass for €2
Oliver Krug is a freelance writer
www.centrobotin.org