ENAIRE Foundation to open space in Santander

De la Serna visits future ENAIRE Foundation branch in Santander

Madrid, 28 October 2017

The ENAIRE Foundation, the cultural institution associated with ENAIRE, will open a space in Cantabria thanks to a contract of use signed by the Foundation and the Santander Port Authority.

Naves de Gamazo will become an exhibition space for the ENAIRE Collection for a maximum of 20 years, renewable for successive five-year periods up to a maximum of 50 years, Minister for Public Works Íñigo de la Serna said today in Santander, accompanied by the chairman of the board of trustees of the ENAIRE Foundation and Secretary of State for Infrastructures, Transport and Housing, Julio Gómez-Pomar; president of the Santander Port Authority, Jaime González; ENAIRE Foundation managing director Beatriz Montero de Espinosa, and the government delegate in Cantabria, Samuel Ruiz.

Naves de Gamazo, an architectural jewel in Santander, is named after Germán Gamazo, Minister of Public Works in the Sagasta government, and the work that will be done will affect two buildings. The older one, from 1908, is the most valuable and the larger of the two, while the other, built in 1950, is smaller.

The cornerstone of the project is the unification of the two spaces, recovering the original physiognomy and structure of the first building (the one from 1908) and renovating and revamping the more recent one (from 1950).

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The architectural proposal covers incorporating views across the bay into the space by opening up one of the side walls with a transparent closure.

The ENAIRE Foundation will renovate this singular building which covers a total of 800 sq metres of exhibition space, making it compatible with the conservation of historical building values, utilising a budget of €2 million. The space will also be adapted to its new cultural and exhibition use in a versatile, modern and sustainable fashion that will boost the cultural offering in Santander.

To date the ENAIRE Collection has been based out of the ENAIRE headquarters in Madrid, at the Aena network airports and stored in safety deposits. With this agreement, tourists to Santander can enjoy this public heritage that belongs to us all.

The Naves de Gamazo permanent collection will comprise the ENAIRE contemporary art collection and will rotate on a regular basis.

ENAIRE’s art heritage, encompassing the ENAIRE contemporary art collection conserved by the Foundation, comprises over 1,300 works of various techniques and formats (paintings, sculptures, engravings, drawings, multimedia works, etc.) representative of the most important art contributions of the 20th and 21st centuries, principally within the national field. It includes works by artists such as Barceló, Tàpies, Equipo Crónica, Picasso, Úrculo, Arroyo, Alfaro and Genovés and photographers including García-Alix, Daniel Canogar and Chema Madoz.