AUDITORIO DE TENERIFE

Auditorio de Tenerife

The Spanish answer to the Sydney Opera House.

A great white curvy concert hall looming over the ocean’s edge? It’s not the Sydney Opera House, it’s the Sydney Opera House’s Canary Islander cousin.

It may be lesser known than its Australian counterpart, but it’s no less dramatic in design and scale. Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava designed it in the 1990s, while he worked concurrently on the City of Arts and Sciences complex in Valencia.

Meet the Auditorio de Tenerife, a marvel on the waterfront of Santa Cruz. Rising 58 meters above the ground is its enormous cantilevered canopy, sweeping over the whole thing like a great suspended wave. Underneath it are the two separate auditoriums that make up the interior. One is a more intimate venue, the other is quite a lot more dramatic. There’s hardly a straight line to be seen throughout, the concrete seems to dance as if decades of live music have willed it into form.

Inside things somehow get even more impressive. The main auditorium sits beneath an incredibly intricate ceiling of curves and folds that all converge at the building’s peak as though it were set within the core of a volcano. In the photos you’ll notice the organ pipes and stage lights integrated beautifully between the forms and then you’ll remember that all of it had to be shaped to function acoustically too, so there’s so much more to it than a mere aesthetic exercise.

The main auditorium sits beneath an incredibly intricate ceiling of curves and folds that all converge at the building’s peak as though it were set within the core of a volcano.

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It is as though the architecture mixes the best of John Lautner, Oscar Niemeyer and Antoni Gaudí all into one astonishing package.

It is as though the architecture mixes the best of John Lautner, Oscar Niemeyer and Antoni Gaudí all into one astonishing package. There are clearly better known buildings around the world that echo a similar style, but nothing really accounts for how criminally underrated the Auditorio de Tenerife really is.