E-007

Convention Centre, Agadir . OMA . 1990

Our project can be read as a single building 'split' in two parts, a roof and a sockle, to create a major urban 'room', a covered plaza on the beach, facing the sea. The two axes culminate on the plaza. Floating above the verandah; the hotel: a single layer of rooms, each its own view. The conference centre forms the lower part, the sockle.
It was our challenge in this competition to find an original architectural expression for this enormous program which is compatible with the beauty of the site.
The curvilinear landscape of the dunes continues as the 'hills’ and 'valleys’ of the sockle, which accommodate the major components of the program: auditorium, etc.
As in a mirror image, the same kind of relief appears on the roof where it accommodates the royal chamber.
In this way the experience of the plaza will be determined by the similarity between above and below. 
The landscape which is generated with its concave and convex domes, with the 'forest’ of columns, its shafts of light, is a modern interpretation of Islamic space which will also be expressed by the materials: polished concrete, mosaic, tiles etc.

http://oma.eu/projects/agadir-convention-centre