A sculptural brutalist icon sitting on a hill overlooking Pasaia.
The Itsas Eskola (nautical school) is a fantastic example of the formal experimentation that took place in late modernism. And I grew up watching it.
Designed by Luis Laorga and José López Zanón, the school was conceived as a fortress of knowledge for future sailors . It has a monumental scale concrete wall anchoring the building to the hill and an origami like folded volume where the planetarium sits that hovers above the road mimicking a ship ready to sail away.
The complex originally hosted classrooms, a grand conference hall, and the watchtower overlooking the harbour. Both poetic and functional, the architecture drew from the drama of the sea and the industrial edges of the Basque coastline.
I appreciate that you cannot see any of this, because I have chosen to show you the needle above and the watchtower and hence you will need to look it up 😅
As a child I found the building both impressive and intimidating. Futuristic and almost tectonic ,like the coastline we used to visit from a boat.
Unfortunately, In the 2010s, a zebra style residential development next door destabilised the hillside and foundation shifts led to the partial demolition of the main building while the tower and planetarium had to be closed for structural safety.
The building was listed as endangered (red status) in the 2017 SOS Brutalism: A Global Survey catalog, and as of the latest review on November 5, 2024, it remained at risk.
Last month, the mainstream press reported concerns related to the lack of funding to deliver the local plan.
And of course the discussion/melon gets opened ; where should investment go? Should heritage be rescued or maintained? Etc.
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