Recinto Ferial de Tenerife

This slab defines the perimeter of the base structure: a glazed and buttressed plinth, which faces north toward the park and the sea beyond. The base structure houses a large, vaulted space with a capacity of 3,000 and auxiliary facilities such as congress halls, multi-purpose areas and a restaurant. Administration areas, technical services and loading ramps are located to the west in a pyramidal building, clad in basalt. The separation of function is thus clear. The curved steel arch of the exhibition hall, spanning two concrete, splayed and glazed buttresses at each end of the curved plaza slab, extends over the full 142 meters of the rectangular space. Although this arch is placed on the center line, the configuration is similar to the offset design of the Jahn Sports Park, a project developed for Berlin earlier in the same year. As in the Berlin project, the buttresses mark the entrances. At its apex, the main arch reaches a height of 39 meters.

A shallower, secondary arch is suspended from the main member, and the resulting space is 39 meters above the floor slab at its highest point. To form the roof, gently arched and triangulated latticework trusses, although its corrugated sheet cladding is not structural, span between the main support spine and a series of 18-meter high A-frames along each side. To the south, these A-frames are pierced by a flowing concrete arch to access the administrative block. Rows of skylights fill the repeating spaces between both ends of the adjacent trusses, along the full length of the roof. It was vital to keep costs to a minimum. This was achieved by the selection of materials and the type of construction. Volcanic rock excavated from the foundations was used for the paving and the facing of the plinth walls. This local stone also forms the aggregate for the concrete, so that the overall impression is in keeping with the island's landscape.