Kursaal Cultural CentreRafael Moneo

Structural Engineers: Javier Manterola, Hugo Corres and Associates, Jesus Jimenez Canas

San Sebastian, Spain

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Rafael Moneo

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In 1978, at the age of 41, Rafael Moneo wrote in his Oppositions article “On Typology”,

“The traditional typological approach, which has tried to recover the old idea of architecture, has largely failed. Thus, perhaps the only means architects have to master form today is to destroy it.”1

In 1989, when Moneo designed the Kursaal Centre, little had changed. His architectural outlook, in the words of Stanley Allen, was still “characterized by internal disjunction”, and in his design of the Kursaal Centre, he destroyed the form of the cube, inclining it toward the sea, the composition a “fragile equilibrium among disparate parts.”2

Site

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A large part of Moneo’s design addresses the Kursaal site as an area of “geographical accidents”. In San Sebastian, “the Cantabrian Sea eddies in La Concha Harbor, reproducing all the accidents of geography to be found in textbooks: bays, islands, beaches, estudiaries, and hills.”3 Moneo refused to erect any building that violated the natural landscape and the presence of the river.

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DesignAside from refusing to violate the natural presence of the river in the city, Moneo sought to create two separate and autonomous volumes, prisms stranded at the mouth of the river as if they were gigantic rocks. The rocks belong to the landscape and not the sea, and they create a point of interest between Mount Ulia and Mount Igueldo. Moneo chose to celebrate the idea of geographic accident by inclining each prism three degrees on the horizontal and five degrees on the vertical4 toward the sea and the mountains beyond. Each prism has an auditorium ascribed asymmetrically within it, referencing Moneo’s desire to destroy pure form and create fragile compositions. The only exterior view afforded in each is through a single window, which faces Mount Urgull in the larger prism and Mount Ulia in the smaller.

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Program

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The primary functions of the Kursaal Centre are contained within the two prismatic volumes. The larger of the volumes contains the auditorium, and the smaller of the volumes contains congress hall, which is suitable for small musical performances. The larger of the halls seats 1,828 people, and the smaller seats 624 people.4

The secondary functions of the building are contained in its low, wedgelike base. The platform at the base of the prisms contains exhibition halls, meeting rooms, offices, restaurants, retail, banquet halls and musicians’ services. The area also contains information and ticket booths.

In the sub-basement, a 720 car parking structure provides public parking for the small operas and musical performances within, as well as for surfers who visit the Playa de la Zurriola.5

Sections + Elevations

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Moneo’s elevations from his 1989 competition drawings emphasize the incline of the prisms in ways unexpressed in perspective. Moneo’s sections show the concrete beams in the auditorium and over the lobby. In section, the cavity between the layers of translucent glass facade appears to be massive. In reality, the cavity is two meters in depth, a substantial distance.

CONCRETE BEAMS

EXTERIOR STRUCTURE AND FACADE SYSTEMEXTERIOR STRUCTURE AND FACADE SYSTEM

CONCRETE BEAMS

StructureThe Kursaal Centre has a double glass skin made of concave translucent glass tiles on the exterior and strips of translucent glass on the interior. These glass tiles and strips are supported entirely by an independent steel structure. The thick facade is separated from the interior auditorium boxes, which are made of concrete, clad in timber panels. The structure of the auditorium boxes is completely independent of the building’s facade.

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Facade System

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The steel system which supports the facade is made of box columns and angled box beams, welded at the joints. The module for the spacing of the bays is six meters, large enough to allow tempered air circula-tion and service access. The concave glass tiles are attached to the steel structure using struts and two steel mounting clips. The corner joints of the glass, which are bevelled to meet cleanly, are re-peated or simply inverted at every corner to re-duce the need for custom details. The horizontal joints between the glass have a custom V-shaped channel made of cast alu-minum.6

The roof is supported by trusses which span freely from one side to the other. The mechanical systems are suspended from the trusses and hang above the au-ditoriums, transmitting no vibrations dur-ing performances and allowing the roof to share the translucent glass aesthetic of the facade. The gravity load of the facade, roof trusses, and mechanical sys-tems is transferred to the steel columns and box beams. The building resists the lateral load created by the strong salt laden winds through structural repetition, lateral bracing in the trusses, and deep piles which anchor the building to its con-crete foundation.6

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Cast Concrete SystemThere are 48,000 cubic meters of concrete in the Kursaal Centre and over 6,000 tons of steel reinforcement.7 The tilt-up concrete walls and concrete beams containing the auditoriums are concealed behind cedarwood. The independent structures meet the facade only through the intermediary stair platforms, which are simply supported by a steel haunch, welded to the exterior steel structure.

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Concrete BeamsThe precast concrete beams in the Kursaal Centre support the roof of the interior auditorium volume. The beams taper in response to the forces of compression and tension, providing more material on the top of the beam, where compression occurs. The photograph of the model on the left does not include the concrete beams; however, if included, they would be placed above the framing joists for the timber paneling. The image below shows the tilt-up concrete walls in yellow and the precast concrete beams in red. The presence of the concrete beams only above the timber ceiling responds to the additional load of the secondary ceiling system.

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ROUGH CROSS SECTION OF PRECAST CONCRETE BEAM

COMPRESSION

TENSION

StairsOn April 12, 1998, the stairs within the Kursaal Centre collapsed. The failure was attributed to the steel supports, which were changed from the original design to increase the ease of construction at the last minute.

The collapse occurred on a holiday, and no one was in-jured. The design on the right, when compared to the photo-graphs of the failed structure, shows the steel was not strong enough to support the gravity load; hence, the rebar failed in bending. This occurred be-cause welding weakened the U-shaped steel bars at their point of greatest stress, where they met the slab. The ac-tual design in the Kursaal Cen-tre today is shown below and right.7IMAGE 23

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Details

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InteriorsMoneo plays with the scale of the cedar cladding on the interior and exterior of the concrete auditorium forms. He establishes greater contrast through his use of bands of artificial light on the interior, referencing the bands of translucent glass on the facade and in the lobby spaces.

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Footnotes1: Assemblage, p 202: Assemblage, p 203: Assemblage, p 84: Rockwool5: Monolithic Architecture, p 1046: Architectural Record, p 2217: Serna, p 2

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BibliographyCohn, David. “Like Two Glowing Crystals, Rafael Moneo’s Centro Kursaal in Northern Spain Captures the Energy of the City and Landscape.” Architectural Record, v. 188 issue 5, 2000, p. 212-223.

Fundacio Mies van der Rohe. European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture: Mies van der Rohe Award 2001. Actar: Barcelona, 2001.

“The Kursaal Cultural Center: Rafael Moneo’s Glass Cubes in San Sebastian.” Rockwool. < http://www.rockwool.dk/sw57795.asp>.

Machado, Rodolfo and Rudolphe el-Khoury. Monolithic Architecture. New York: Prestel-Verlag, 1995.

Moneo, Jos. “Kursaal : Cultural Center for San Sebastian, Spain.” Assemblage, issue 14, 1991, p. 6-23.

Moneo, Jos. “Rafael Moneo 1990-1994.” Croquis, issue 64, 1994.

Podrecca, Boris. Einführen in das Entwerfen Analyse Raffael Moneo: Kursaal San Sebastian. < http://www.uni-stuttgart.de/irg/irg/home/ee/kursaal/ index.html>.

Serna, Miguel A., et al. “Failure of Steel-Concrete Connections at the Kursaal Auditorium.” University of the Basque Country: San Sebastian, 1999.