ENAIRE Foundation awards construction works for the Gamazo Warehouses in Santander
By mid-2020 the restored premises will become the first permanent headquarters for ENAIRE's Contemporary Art Collection.
The ENAIRE Foundation, a cultural organisation linked to ENAIRE (the company belonging to the Public Works Ministry that manages Spain's air navigation), has awarded Ascan Empresa Constructora y de Gestión S.A. the contract to renovate and adapt the old Gamazo Warehouses in the Port of Santander to make them suitable for a museum to house ENAIRE's future Contemporary Art Collection.
The Cantabrian construction company ranked best in both the technical and financial offers made by the five bidding companies.
The contract amounts to 1,331,467.20 euros (excluding taxes); delivery time is 12 months; and total investment is 2 million euros.
The Gamazo Warehouses will reopen in mid-2020 with an inaugural exhibition of the late Eduardo Arroyo, who passed away in October 2018.
The use assignment contract signed between the ENAIRE Foundation and the Santander Port Authority is for 20 years, renewable for consecutive five-year periods to a limit of 50 years.
The Gamazo Warehouses (Naves de Gamazo) are one of the gems of industrial architecture in Cantabria. They are named after Germán Gamazo, who was the Minister for Public Works under Sagasta.
Their restoration and revaluation is governed by Spain's Historical Heritage Law, which obliges public construction contracts to earmark 1.5% for conservation or enrichment of Spanish Historical Heritage sites or the stimulation of artistic creativity, giving priority to the works themselves or their immediate surroundings.
The complex comprises two spaces totalling almost 1,000 square metres. Both warehouses will be affected by the planned works. The oldest, largest and most valuable dates back to 1908.
The architects Eduardo Fernández-Abascal and Floren Muruzábal won the competition for drafting the project and supervising the works.
The challenge: to make the ENAIRE Foundation's future headquarters compatible with safeguarding the inherent values of a historic building, while tailoring it to meet a new, versatile, modern-day, sustainable requirement, that of using it for cultural activities and exhibitions.
The basis of the project is the unification of both spaces, recovering the original appearance and structure of the first of the warehouses, in parallel with the renovation and modernisation of the more recent warehouse.
The ENAIRE Collection of Contemporary Art
The ENAIRE Contemporary Art Collection comprises almost 1,200 artworks by the most important Spanish artists from the second half of the 20th century to the present day. It includes works by artists such as Barceló, Tàpies, Chillida, Broto, Genovés, Arroyo and Úrculo, as well as photographers such as García-Alix, Daniel Canogar and Chema Madoz.
By means of this agreement, we intend to bring this collection, owned by the Ministry of Public Works, closer to the public.
About ENAIRE
ENAIRE is the company belonging to the Public Works Department that handles air navigation in Spain. It renders aerodrome control services at 21 airports, including the busiest in terms of air traffic, plus en-route and approach control, from five control centres: Barcelona, Madrid, Gran Canaria, Palma and Seville.
In 2018 ENAIRE operated 2.1 million flights to and from four continents (Europe, America, Asia and Africa), transporting 300 million passengers.
ENAIRE is the fourth most important European air traffic manager, and, in a clear commitment to the Single Sky initiative, belongs to international partnerships such as SESAR (Single European Sky ATM Research) Joint Undertaking, SESAR Deployment Manager, A6, iTEC, CANSO (Civil Air Navigation Services Organisation) and ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organisation).
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