Location: Avd. Reyes Leoneses, León, Spain.

Architects: Luis M. Mansilla and Emilio Tuñón.

Client: Government of Castilla y León.

Competition date: 1994.

Project date: 1996.

Work completed date: 2002.

Built area: 9 000 m2.

Building cost: 14 000 000 Euros.

The auditorium turns its lion’s head and, as if it were a plateresque echo of the San Marcos church, the face is constructed as a stack of windows in which two diverse orders appear: the perimeter of the apertures that refer to geometry, and the inner aperture of each window, fruit of the necessities of the interior. The constructed plan thus oscillates between a group of stacked windows that are equal in their being and different in their form of being. All are stacked, sowing the doubt about whether the external perimeter is prior to the stack or a product of it. In reality, it is a stack of contrary indications. Furthermore, the main volume of the building, relegated to the background, extends the section until it becomes an elevation; an extruded volume whitch profile is lightened by placing more emphasis on the surface than on the volume.

First prize in an international competition.

National Award of Spanish Architecture 2003.

Selected for the VII Spanish Biennale of Architecture.

Finalist in the ”Mies van der Rohe Award” 2002.