Casanova+Hernandez architects | A025_Museum of the Canary Islands

The historical facades of the existing buildings are preserved. In the interior the existing patios and the general structure of the buildings are also preserved, but the added elements in modern periods are cleaned out.

A new block is located on the corner where flows of visitors from other historic buildings of the city meet. This corner is designed in a way that it doesn’t touch the existing volumes, thus providing two ‘fissures’ where the main accesses are situated. The skin of the new volume is made of ‘intriguing’ lattices that filter the natural light and provide a strong ‘silent’ image to the new architecture.

The museum is organized in three levels.

Access level: the public square

The entrance level is designed as a public inner square. It is a meeting point for the visitors from where they can go to the main public uses areas inside the building such as the library, the shop, the café-restaurant, the temporary exhibitions rooms and the auditorium.

Second level: exhibition space / patios-skylights

From the public inner ‘square’ one big staircase leads to the upper level, where the exhibition rooms are located. The architectural ‘promenade’ goes through all the spaces without losing its visual contact with the main inner ‘square’ on ground floor.

Each exhibition space has a patio crowned by one skylight that filters the light by means of lattice skins as those of the façade of the new corner block.

Third level: the belvedere-terrace

By using wooden platforms and sculptorical skylights, the roof becomes an artificial landscape from where the Cathedral, the mountains and the ocean can be fully enjoyed. As the roof of ‘La Pedrera’ in Barcelona, this one will become one important meeting point for the visitors of the islands.