SelgasCano

SelgasCano is a Spanish architectural office based in Madrid and founded in 1998 by José Selgas and Lucía Cano.

Their work includes three auditoriums and congress centers in Spain (Auditorio de Badajoz, Auditorio El Batel Cartagena and Auditorio de Plasencia[1]); several office buildings such as Second Home London,[2] Second Home Lisboa[3] and Second Home Los Angeles,[4] a school in Kibera, Nairobi,[5] a vaccination center in Turkana, Kenya,[6] and several public pavilions including the 15th annual Serpentine Pavilion 2015 in London,[7] which was re-installed at La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles in 2019.

[8] Selgascano´s office in the woods in Madrid is the most visited project in the specialized architecture website Archdaily,[9] Selgascano's work has been exhibited in MoMA, New York City;[10] Bruges Trienal;[11] Guggenheim New York; GA gallery in Tokyo; the MOT(Contemporary Art Museum of Tokyo; the Design Museum of London; the Akademie der Kunste in Berlin; the Tin Sheds Gallery in Sydney; the MIT in Boston; the Venice Biennale in Venice; and the Louisiana Museum in Copenhagen.

Selgascano was awarded with the Kunstpreis by the Akademie der Künste in Berlin in 2013, as well as the Architects of the Year prize by the German Design Council in Munich.

SelgasCano works on various scales and typologies: Their portfolio includes installations, pavilions, small shops, single-family houses, office buildings, congress centers and auditoriums and large-scale park proposals.

As Christopher Turner, London Design Biennale director, states: “There is nothing superficial about SelgasCano’s use of colour – the Spanish duo’s pop-art playfulness has been integral to projects from east London to northern Kenya.”[13] A key factor in their work is also the use of unusual, industrial-grade materials, like ethylene tetrafluoroethylene (ETFE), polymethyl methacrylate (acrylic) and polycarbonate.

The Cartagena Auditorium and Congress Centre is situated at the end of a roughly one kilometre long harbour strip on the border between the city and the waterfront on a plot of 18.500 m2.

[12] While it’s outside consists of rigid lines, the interior is more architecturally articulated, with a promenade inside that connects two opposite entrances with the various programs that are housed within.

The 2015 Serpentine Pavilion by SelgasCano showcased a colorful plastic design, consisting of a minimal steel frame wrapped in multi-colored ETFE sheet and webbing.

This structural failure has led to condemning reviews, one of which, titled “A clown’s sleeve” was published by Robert Bevan in the London Evening Standard, claiming that “Selgascano’s offering is amongst the Serpentine’s least successful pavilions, not helped by the Spanish architects’ late realization that the brief is not just for an art installation but a functioning summer café and party venue.”[17] The Plasencia Auditorium and Congress Centre is situated on the edge of the town of Plasencia, which had gradually undergone a process of urbanization in which the town had been built artificially elevated.

The site for the project is on the outskirts of this urbanized area within the surrounding natural landscape, which is 18 meters below street level.