Academy of Music in Santiago de Compostela

Rising like a huge block of granite in the landscape, the academy is articulated into horizontal courses of thick, rough-hewn stone and punctuated by an irregular array of window slits. The textured outer surface is both a design feature and an economical measure – the outcome of boring the stone from the rock bed and leaving it without further treatment. Internally, a continuous vertical space, narrowing towards the top, links all storeys and brings daylight into the interior. The foyer on the lower ground floor opens to the external realm, creating a lighter plinth storey beneath the heavy stone cube. The larger spaces at the bottom of the building give way to layouts divided into smaller units towards the top.