The Botín Centre, a ship sailing from the Bay of Santander

SantanderIt is inevitable that photographs do not do justice to the life of buildings. Images reflect how the building relates to the fabric around it, capture details and atmospheres, and suggest paths. But until one visits a building, one cannot grasp its full magnitude. Likewise, it is perhaps a degree of excellence that a building is not exhausted in its image. The Botín Center in Santander is one such building. The first building by Italian architect Renzo Piano, winner of the Pritzker Prize in 1998, has two lives. The metal stairs and terraces that surround it on the outside, known as the pachinko, make it a privileged viewing point over the bay and the city. One of the attractions is a 23-metre long diving board over the sea. And, inside, it houses uses such as an auditorium, educational spaces, two large exhibition halls, a restaurant and a shop. "A million people pass through the building every year, some 250,000 of whom come in to see the exhibitions. It's a good number, but we have put up signs to call visitors, so that if they have reached the door, they should come in to see the exhibitions," say sources from the centre.

The Botín Centre, the emblem of the foundation with the same name, is considered one of the last iconic buildings built in the State. It cost around 100 million euros. When the economic crisis hit in 2008 and the architecture sector was severely affected, work continued, and it opened its doors in 2017. Two more reasons why it is an elusive building have their origin in the controversy surrounding its location on the bay. For this reason, Piano decided to build it on a string of pillars up to seven metres high, whose thickness is no greater than the trees in the park in front, and to divide the building into two parts: the classrooms and auditorium are located in the east building, and the exhibition halls.², to the west. Of the two, the most striking feature is the overhead lighting on the upper floor, with a skylight that occupies a large part of the roof. Piano defined it as "a building that celebrates the water, like another boat in the bay." Indeed, it gives this effect.

A building that changes color depending on the impact of light

One of the most emblematic features of the Botín Centre is the ceramic skin of both volumes, made up of more than 280,000 pearlescent pieces, whose colour changes depending on the light: they have blueish hues on cloudy days and are almost white when the sun is shining. However, both volumes have been covered with a protective mesh since spring 2018 because some of the pieces, the work of the Granollerina company Cerámica Cumella, cracked and there was a risk of them falling. Sources from the foundation explain that they are looking for "the best solution" to resolve it and that the problem with the façade does not affect the operation of the centre at all. Likewise, in 2019 a court in Santander determined that the person responsible for the detachment of the garments was the company that had designed the anchoring system, the also Catalan Tot Disset. The company closed, but its owners remain active under another name. There is no other solution beyond replacing the pieces, but it is not yet known when this will be done.

The ambition of the Botín Centre project went beyond the building itself: the foundation financed the burying of a 200-metre section of the Pereda promenade to strengthen the centre's relationship with the city. The Pereda gardens were remodelled by the landscaper Fernando Caruncho in collaboration with the Piano studio, turning it into a sculpture park where works by great artists such as Joan Miró and Cristina Iglesias can be seen. The intervention meant doubling the size of the gardens from 20,000 to 48,000 m² and the green areas from 7,003 to 20,056 m²And to integrate the park with the bay, the architects paved the walkways and plazas with a "blue concrete sprinkled with copper and iron sulphate" that blends in with the color of the sea.

The Botín Centre is home to both great masters of modern and contemporary art such as Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso and, in a few months, Remedios Varo, and the most radically contemporary artists, such as the Japanese artist Shimabuku (Kobe, 1969). Shimabuku's exhibition, entitled Pop, citrus, human (until March 9), is the most ambitious of this artist known for the artistic experiments he has undertaken since the 1990s, spurred on by curiosity and the desire to relate to the people he meets. In Shimabuku's hands, learning to tan cucumbers, shaving an eyebrow and documenting the reactions that it provokes during a subway ride and provoking the encounter between a fish and a potato becomes artistic material, imbued with humanism and humor. "I try to find something in everyday life that the local population doesn't see," says the artist, also known for his fascination with octopuses. For the occasion of the exhibition, Shimabuku photographed one hundred people from Santander so that they could make a star out of themselves, and they all made them fly.