Instituto Rafael Arozarena

Instituto Rafael Arozarena in La Orotava, Tenerife by AMP Arquitectos

Photographs are copyright Miguel De Guzman.

Part of the Canary Islands chain, Tenerife is known for the volcanic crater at its center, a strong influence on residents of the island and AMP Arquitectos, who have crafted a body of work that is rooted in its place and possesses a weight rarely found in much contemporary architecture, unfortunately. Their design for the Instituto Rafael Arozarena in La Orotava is no different, composed of overlapping, concrete bars and a detached athletics facility in a valley setting.

Access to the school is via a parking lot to the west or a footbridge on the south, the latter primarily for students after being dropped off. From this high, entry level -- containing offices and the library -- the building descends down the slope, the lowermost portion being the detached gymnasium, its curved roof the apparent antithesis to the strong horizontality of the rest of the school. Movement up and down the slope is achieved via a stair tower that projects like a prow, creating a vertical accent in the building's horizontal banding.

From the top level to the bottom a slight gradation in the concrete's coloring is apparent, from a slate to a dark green. This change of color continues to the left and right of the stair tower, as if it is a fulcrum about which a change from red to blue to green takes place. This coloring extends to the treatment of the classrooms, which feature gray concrete occasionally set off by bright splashes of color. The overall, pigmented color treatment of the concrete helps break down the scale of the large school, create a pleasing environment for the students, and give the project a distinctive presence on the hillside.

The almost rainbow of colors for the building's concrete exterior -- banded with operable louvers at the classrooms and retractable shades at the corridors -- sits atop rough stone walls that help anchor the school to its site. This weightiness is a refreshing antidote to the lightness and transparency popular in architecture today, where buildings try to dissolve or become immaterial. AMP Arquitectos, in the words of David Cohn, "offer an architecture resistant to this erosion, an architecture which returns us to a material, existential world of experience and being."