Plasencia Auditorium And Congress Center / Selgascano

Architects: Selgascano
Area: 80729 ft²
Year: 2017
Manufacturers: Lastra y Zorrilla, AIR-board, EGE, Fiberline, Nowofol, Plexiglas, Walker
Lead Architects: Jose Selgas, Lucia Cano
Design Team: José de Villar, Carlos Chacón, Julio Cano, Lara Resco, Lorena del Río, Manuel Cifuentes, Beatriz Quintana, Jeongwoo Choi, Laura Culiañez, Bárbara Bardin, Johannes Riekert, Cristina Gutierrez
Architectural Assistant: Manuel Trenado
Structural Engineer, Facada Structure: FHECOR ingenieros consultores
Mechanical: JG ingenieros
Acoustic Engineer: Arau Acustica
Textile Architectures: Lastra Zorrilla
General Contractor: Placonsa-Joca
Owner: Junta de Extremadura
City: Cartagena
Country: Spain

The Plasencia Auditorium and Congress Center, designed by Selgascano, is located on the outskirts of Plasencia, where urban development meets the natural landscape. The design embraces the natural terrain, minimizing its footprint by resting on a lower level than the surrounding streets. The building is designed to be a visible landmark, with a luminous form that stands out both day and night. The structure includes a main hall, secondary hall, exhibition spaces, and a restaurant, all accessed via an orange gangway that connects the urbanized street level with the building below.

Plasencia Auditorium and Congress Center / Selgascano

The center is situated at the boundary between town and countryside on the outskirts of Plasencia, where the landscape shifts from a less artificial human touch to one shaped by millennia of natural climate. Human intervention has rapidly altered what nature shaped over millennia, resulting in the construction of 15-meter-high retaining walls. From the beginning of the design process, it was clear that the project required choosing between two sides of this boundary: aligning with the city, shaped by our generation, or embracing the slower, natural world. Under these circumstances, it was impossible to belong to both.

Opting for the second approach, the architects positioned the buildings at a much lower level than the street to address the significant height difference between the two environments. The artificial landscape had created a 17-meter-high embankment, burying the natural contours beneath it. In response to this overwhelming imposition, the design was conceived with maximum respect for the land, occupying and covering the smallest possible area of the site.

The architects aimed to have this building set the stage for a new approach, preserving an island of natural earth within the future expansion zone. Even if it stands as a small puddle in a vast sea, it could serve as a catalyst for future constructions, which may also find themselves integrated and anchored within this expansive landscape—the Extremadura countryside serving as an analogy for the ocean.

Forget-me-not. The architects were drawn to the name, and to the fact that it is a flower. The Salamanca highway, the historic Silver Route, and the future Silver Motorway all pass along the western side of the site, which also offers the best views of the Gata Range.

The building will be visible from the entire western perspective, stretching from north to south. As it will be seen by drivers passing at high speed, it was designed as a luminous form, or a snapshot, serving as a landmark for passengers both day and night. The design plays with the relationship between perception and reality, creating a dynamic visual that appears to move as one changes position.

Forget-me-not… let its final form evoke the same reminder as George Sand’s words to Flaubert: “Do not define the form, don’t bother…” The shape of the building is dictated by its section, stemming from the architects’ concept of minimizing the footprint on the ground, particularly in the stage area and the tiers of the main hall. The section of this hall defines and completes the building’s form, with the rest of the program—such as the entrance lobby, a secondary hall for 300 people (which can be divided into three smaller halls), exhibition spaces, and the restaurant—layered on top of it.

The entrance is located at the urbanized street level, over 17 meters above the building’s lowest point, accessed via an orange gangway that leads to a 12-meter-deep vertical canyon of the same color. This design accentuates views of the countryside and the spurs of the Gata Range. From this point, visitors can move around the central concrete shell, ascending or descending via ramps and spiral stairs that blend exterior and interior spaces. This approach was chosen for both economic and practical reasons: saving on climate control and glass enclosures for certain areas, and creating a dynamic experience by transitioning through different climates as one moves in and out of the spaces.