EDDEA’s refurbishment of the ‘Cayetano Roldán’ health centre wins best healthcare building award
EDDEA’s refurbishment of the Doctor Cayetano Roldán health centre in San Fernando (Cádiz) has won an Arquitectura Plus (A+) Award, a competition that attracted 163 projects from 90 studios. In the third edition of these awards, organised by Grupo Vía to showcase the talent of Spanish architects, more than 150 professionals chose the eight best projects in as many categories through an interactive, participatory process.
EDDEA received the A+ Award for the best healthcare architecture project 2010–2012, an accolade that adds to its recognition at the 11th Spanish Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism and its selection, from among more than a hundred entries from 19 countries, for the Philippe Rotthier European Prize for Architecture.
The work on the present health centre – formerly the Hermanos Laulhé outpatient clinic by Fernando Cavestany, dating from 1954 – was promoted by the Andalusian Regional Government (Junta de Andalucía) with an investment of 3.6 million euros. EDDEA was responsible for the refurbishment of this San Fernando clinic, reopened in 2010, which serves a population of close to 30,000.
The Seville firm’s team explains that “we took on the challenge of restoring and refurbishing the building with the aim of connecting past and present while keeping its original image unaltered”. “Today, following the same line as Cavestany, the clinic stands out for a carefully studied interplay of volumes that makes optimal use of the space,” they add.
A protected modernist building
The building that houses the Doctor Cayetano Roldán health centre in San Fernando has been protected by the Regional Ministry of Culture since 2001, when it was included in the General Catalogue of Protected Heritage of Andalusia alongside fifteen other buildings in the region, as an example of the modernist architecture of the mid-20th century.
The complex is composed of three bodies, distinct in volume and function yet formally analogous, in a clearly modern strategy for occupying the plot, albeit one inherited from the finest tradition of historic hospital design.
It was built in 1954 by Fernando Cavestany Pardo-Valcárcel – architect, sculptor and painter, a leading figure of the 1950s and 1960s – who also designed several other healthcare centres of the period.
Indeed, the Cayetano Roldán centre is considered one of the finest examples of healthcare architecture built in Spain in the 1950s, notable for its gridded façade with its ceramics and sculptures.
