Bamiyan Cultural Center

OBamiyan, Afghanistan, 2015

Competition: Entry
Client: UNESCO
Area: 2.200 sqm

Design architects: Operastudio and +R

The Cultural Center is a vast building, kind of monumental, which anyway doesn’t dominate over the surroundings, it fits without snatches inside the existing urban fabric, it integrates with the built environment and the landscape. Thus the materials choice, rather than responding to mere technological and constructive needs, aims to integrate as much as possible the building with the surrounding environment: the pressed mud walls can guarantee a good thermal insulation, are easy and cheap to build, but mostly they merge with the arid surrounding ground, while the brick vaults, a local architectural feature, recall the curvy lines of the nearby mountains.