Centro de Interpretación
The building is located in the historic old city centre, outside the medieval walls and very near to the convent and museum of Santa Teresa. With European, regional and local funding and support, the centre's building and its contents were conceived and designed simultaneously, so that both its outer appearance and functional life inside the material structure could be integrated in a harmonius way.
Study +4's architectural intervention deliberately sought to protect the original buildings, respecting their external layout while at the same time introducing a contemporary style whose most significant feature is a prismatic cover that allows the light to be filtered throught a laminated membrane.
The interior space is divided into four rooms matching the four universal dimensions that define mysticism according to Catherine of Siena's threefold distinction -"A room to be with yourself, another to be with God, and a third one to be with the world"- to which "tradition" has been added as fourth universal and corresponding room.
In the centre, which owes its initial vision and project to ICN-Artea Company, many diverse professionals contributed their experience: architects, interpreters, artists, designers, writers, specialists in setting up exhibitions, etc. THe result is a unique and most appealing cultural space: a place where both people of different faiths and secular thinkers partake in the same basic and most essential experience of the human heart, something that is truly necessary in our world today.
The Centre's opening ceremony took place on June 4, 2004, by Ávila's Tonwn Mayor , Mr. Miguel Ángel García Nieto.
