El contexto como estrategia de proyecto. El concurso para el Palacio Provincial de la Diputación de La Coruña de Alejandro de la Sota

In the first half of the 1950s, Alejandro de la Sota participated in a series of competition projects for public buildings. The four competitions for the Diputación of La Coruña (1954), the Delegación de Hacienda of Tarragona (1954), the Delegación de Hacienda of San Sebastian (1955), and the Delegación de Hacienda of La Coruña (1956), became a laboratory of research and experimentation on the theme of the public building. This type of building in fact represents the central power in distant provinces in which the resolution of complex functional problems is inextricably linked to the need for representation of power. These buildings were also characterized by complex systems in which public functions coexisted with residences and in which it was necessary to combine the different needs of offices, places of representation and homes. The article will analyze the Competition for the building of the Diputación of La Coruña through the study of the unpublished documentation preserved in the archive of the Alejandro de la Sota Foundation, composed of project reports, sketches, drawings and maquette. These materials will be joined by interpretative drawings and maquette prepared by the author of text. The aim is to investigate the design process, emphasizing how the relationship and integration with the context were an element of primary importance in its conception. In this sense, the considerations contained in the project report and the model created to integrate the first phase of the competition show how the volumetric articulation of the building arises from the precise desire to fit inside Square Pontevedra. This Square was characterized by a condition of strong imbalance between buildings of different masses and heights. Starting from de la Sota's analysis contained in his project report, it is also interesting to emphasize how the relationship with the context is not only developed in relation to the location or the volume, but also with the character of the building that allude to the "wonderful facade of the Marina, a facade of extraordinary beauty whose influence cannot be forgotten in any important project realized for La Coruña". In the project Sota carries out a critical analysis of the functional program of access and paths to which it combines equally profound research and reflection on the environment, understood in the sense of strategy placing, but also in relation to morphological traditions, materials and methods of the place and its specific character. Despite being a non-executed project, the analysis of this work will highlight the words of the master when he explained to his students how to enter "deep into the environments ... by completing them ...: the teaching of the "good old'" will improve and temper our healthy momentum". This will reveal Sota’s ability to interpret the context without sacrificing the search of shapes of abstraction, giving origin to profoundly modern designs that incorporate teachings from the past.