Project: Escola Galega de Administración Pública.
Architects: Carlos Meijide Calvo.
Date: 1995-1996
Location: Rúa de Londres.
Carlos Meijide designed the Escola Galega de Administración Pública within the Fontiñas neighbourhood's rectilinear layout, in one of its square pieces, delimited by parallel and perpendicular streets. This building is a severe prism, covered by limestone, with a flat roof, barely brightened up by openings delimited by dark-grey metalwork and the odd walkway of the same colour, used for maintenance and cleaning. There is a square courtyard at the centre of the building, as if it were a sober convent space. The exterior facing this courtyard, a tense glazed surface, enables us to understand the functioning of the building, which looks so rich and complex from this empty space inside and so hermetic and compact from the outside.
From the inner courtyard we discover the real nature of the complex: it is, in fact, four buildings, each of which is conceived as a prism, which have been placed together to form the complex's four façades. Thus, the west section is used for centre's administration work, with a complex division of offices and work areas. The south zone houses singular spaces such as the exhibition room or the library and the assembly hall, the last two of which have two floors. In the east section there are lecture and seminar rooms, with a generous free space parallel to the glazed surface open towards the courtyard. Finally, the north volume is used as a students' residence, with dormitories, dining rooms and lounges.
All of this clearly functional order, once seen from the courtyard, enables us to understand the subtle differences in the openings of the sober exterior façades, which, from then on, acquire a different meaning.