Marqués de Riscal Hotel

Spain

Marqués de Riscal, one of the most prestigious wineries in the Rioja Alavesa region, decided to create the City of Wine in order to introduce its wines, its history, culture and philosophy.

A structural challenge

The building includes a wine-therapy spa, a museum of wine and an oenological research and training centre, as well as all the infrastructures of a winery like Marqués de Riscal and a hotel designed by F. Gehry.

After the success of the Guggenheim museum, Gehry once again has the support of IDOM for this new project, drafting the architectural and engineering projects.

Gehry’s architecture, innovative and avant-garde, stems from a very personal vision and an emotional plastic expression. It combines sensual curved shapes with resounding volumes, creating a new architectural language.

The free form devised by Frank Gehry for the Marqués de Riscal winery poses a challenge when determining the effects of the wind on the building, both its support structure and the design and fixation of the curved surfaces of the stainless-steel canopies and multi-colored titanium. Although the height of the building is not significant (25 m), the geometry of highly complex curved shapes is a problem that cannot be addressed through regulations or specialized bibliography.

Different tests and checks were performed. On one hand, the model was tested in a wind tunnel in Canada and subsequently, through another CFD simulation program, a first test was carried out, which allowed us to obtain very similar results.

Architecture