MUSAC - Museo de arte contemporáneo de Castilla y León
Architects: Mansilla + Tuńón

Winner of the 2007 European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture given by the Mies van der Rohe Foundation, this contemporary art museum was rewarded for its intelligent use of space. The jury appreciated the various volumes tightly tied together, which allow for the flexible organisation of the interior spaces with a view to responding efficiently to the task of letting contemporary works of art be exhibited at their best.

The architect's aim was to create a place where the public ceased to be a passive element content with contemplating the exhibited works. Luis M. Mansilla and Emilio Tuńón designed a "living space" which opens its doors to multiple diverse events centred around contemporary art: workshops, meetings with artists, educational guides allowing the spectator to play a true role. As from the first sketches, the idea was to open onto a new way of being in which interactivity is the protagonist of the space itself. The building's structure was "developed from an open system, formed by a fabric of squares and diamonds which allow a secret geography of memory to be built up". A group of autonomous exhibition rooms that are systematically repeated thus create a continuous space, favourable to both longitudinal and transversal perspectives. These flexible interior modules are a magisterial response to the challenge of exhibiting contemporary art. Mansilla and Tuńón's approach to architecture - they worked with Rafael Moneo for around ten years during the eighties - has always linked architectural theory to constructive practice.

Seen from outside, the white-concrete structure with huge coloured windows pays tribute to the block. This engenders an expressive system speaking out for the interest in sharing art and architecture, "the changeable and the eternal, the universal and the transitory, like an echo of our own diversity as human beings".