Mansilla+Tuñón Arquitectos

Townhall . Lalín

Mansilla+Tuñón . photos: © Roland Halbe . © Luis Asin . + A As Architecture . dezeen

While the present is under construction, the past and the future take new forms. Every single moment, each new action, enables a revision of what has been done, and also lends a new profile to what is about be done, modifying continously as much the collective memory as the projects to come.

above photos: © Luis Asin

above photos: © Roland Halbe

In this changing scenario, with a past and a future in constant construction, PROBABILITY becomes the only appearance possible of certainty; it is the only face that allows looking into reality.
In the heart of this transformation, architecture focuses its view attention in a broader sense, considering the definition of space as only a small part of the assignment to what is called: The construction of ARTIFICIAL ENVIRONMENTS, of the ATMOSPHERE in which the actions of mankind are developed.
This is a kind of MOBILIZATION OF THE WORLD in which the principal tool is the negotiation between the parts and the OBJECTIVE is the creation of SCENARIOS OF WILLS that will encourage the collective identity.
In this way, the proposal for the Concello of Lalín oscilates between precision and probability, building an ANTIMONUMENTAL STRUCTURE in which, as in the clouds, each one can guess the changing shapes of the personal references, so that the COLLECTIVE IDENTIFICATION is the result of the diversity of each interpretation: a TECHNOLOGICAL CELTIC VILLAGE, some colored clouds, a civic palimsesto, a patterned fabric, etc.
An OPEN STRUCTURE is proposed, almost a mathematical field, that establishing a local main behavior system, impacts against the dialogue with the environment in front of indifferent autism, chosing the DISPERSED thing against the compact thing, the TRANSPARENT thing against the opaque thing and the DIFFUSE thing against the limited; finally, a social and architectural structure without any kind of hierarchie.
All in all, this is a matter of confronting what we think to be with what surrounds us, so that, what is most important is the capacity to multiply, to intensify and to diversify, the relationships between HUMANS and NON-HUMAN, otherwise it is a matter of doing present that we are nothing less but also nothing more, than a small part of a world that turns without stop, tirelessly...

Principals-in-charge: Luis M. Mansilla & Emilio Tuñón Álvarez
Location: Lalín (Pontevedra)
Client: Lalín Town Hall
Site area: 6,760 sq m
Total floor area: 2,842 sq m
Building area: 7,200 sq m
Cost of construction: 15,000,000 euros
Competition team: Andrés Regueiro, Luis Díaz-Mauriño, Carlos Martínez de Albornoz, Anna Partenheimer, María Langarita, Asa Nakano.
Model makers: HCH Models
Competition date: November 2004
Project team: Andrés Regueiro, Matilde Peralta, María Langarita, Ana del Arenal, Asa Nakano, Bárbara Silva.
Quantity surveyor: Sancho Páramo
Structural engineer: Alfonso Gómez Gaite
Mechanical engineer: Quicler-López ingenieros
Design years: from November 2004 to July 2005
Construction directors: Emilio Tuñon y Luis M. Mansilla
Construction surveyor: Sancho Páramo
Construction team: Andrés Regueiro, Sara Murado, Carlos Brage, Briony Roberts, Rubén Arend, Nuria Martínez Salas, Coco Castillón, Elke Gmyrek, Carlos Cerezo, Alfonso Gómez Gaite (structural), Quicler-López Ingenieros (mechanical)
General contractor: FCC Construcción
Construction years: from November 2005 to Febraury 2011