The MA: Andalucia’s Museum of Memory

The MA (Memoria de Andalucía) building is in line with the Central Headquarters of the Caja Granada Savings Bank that Campo Baeza completed in 2001.

Af Kirsten Kiser

The upper floor of the MA, a three-story podium building measuring 60 by 120 meters, is at the same level as the podium of the main Caja Granada building.

A slim vertical building, the same height and width as the main building of the Caja Granada, gives the illusion of a “Gate to the City.” The dialogue between the two buildings is further accentuated by the use of the same reinforced concrete. Large plasma screens project images on the facade facing Granada’s main ringway.

The new building, silent in its forms, is resounding in its elements to communicate the messages of the new millennium in which we are already immersed. We wanted to design “the most beautiful building” for the Museo de al Memoria de Andalucía (Andalusia’s Museum of Memory) in Granada. The MA is a museum designed to transmit the entire history of Andalusia. In Roman times Strabo described the inhabitants of Andalusia as “the most cultivated of the Iberians, who have laws in verse”.
— Alberto Campo Baeza, “Spreading the Message”

To access the MA you go through the opening in the vertical building, then continue down a wide staircase to the main entrance.

The podium building consists of three floors — access level, first floor, and garden level — two of them below ground. An elliptical central courtyard, with circular ramps, connects the three levels. The dimensions of the elliptical courtyard were taken from the courtyard of the Palace of Charles V in the Alhambra.

The main entrance to the building is on the ground floor, where the reception, administration, workshop, theater, and cafeteria are located. The first floor is for temporary exhibitions as well as independent access to the theater.

The vertical building consists of 10 floors; the third and fourth floor — a double-height mezzanine — connect to the ramp and the vertical circulation. A restaurant with magnificent views is located on the eighth floor.

The MA open “Field” — a large horizontal platform towards the river — serves as a public space for this new area in the city of Granada.