Remodelling of Avenida Xoán XXIII

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Project: Remodelling of Avenida Xoán XXIII
Architects: Albert Viaplana, Helio Piñón
Date: 1991-1994
Location: Historical City

Avenida Juan XXIII, which was created in the sixties, became the main approach road leading to the very centre of the historical quarter. The remodelling, entrusted to the architects Albert Viaplana and Helio Piñón, resolved the function requirements of traffic access, and the need for parking space for cars and coaches, remodelling an existing car park, designed by Julio Cano Lasso, and establishing an interesting dialogue between the new elements and the monumental pieces of the convent buildings of San Francisco and San Martín Pinario, which make up the avenue's perspective background.

The entire platform is resolved with stepped planes from the platform of the avenue, whose edges, paved in granite, are folded up to provide seating and protection for walkers. The complex's main feature is a large canopy with steel columns and a glass roof, which shelters the itinerary of pedestrians as far as the entrance to the historical quarter. This canopy is supported by thick conical steel columns on the side facing the traffic and by thin tubes, of the same material, towards the landscape dominated by Monte Pedroso. It gradually gets lower along its extensive length towards the stone mass of San Francisco, accompanying the route towards the centre of the historical city, playing with the perspective backgrounds and the perception of distance.