It is usually said that what is most important in the field of technology is what you cannot see; the ins and outs of the products, where the talent of engineers, designers and specialists is reflected. This is what enables a company to stand out from the competition and meet its customers’ needs. But it can also be argued that a company needs the right setting in which to show its achievements. A setting that preferably measures up, in terms of style and function, to the products coming out of its research department.

This is the case with the new Fagor Industrial centre, inaugurated in Lucena, a town located in the province of Cordoba: almost 800 square metres creating a new showroom concept where customers and dealers can experience first hand what is new in the different business areas: cooking –where they can see the new 600, 700 and 900 ranges-, dishwashing, with the new Advance, ovens with the new blast chillers and the VISUAL ovens, laundry, commercial refrigeration and buffets.

The environment of this new setting is in harmony with the ultramodern style of its interior; in principle, the irregular shapes of the building with the curved part at the front, the sharp angle on the right and the right angle on the left form a design that would seem more typical of an art gallery than a business headquarters. But this sensation disappears when you walk through the doors and see the care and effort that has gone into making it such a fundamentally practical environment, where customers and dealers can get the best and most accurate impression of the latest advances made in Fagor Industrial’s range of products.

Features that were always present in the minds of its designers, to the extent that the shapes chosen for the construction have nothing to do with a passing fancy, but with a fully utilitarian aim: “formally, the space available was completely irregular in contrast to the rigour of the products on show”, the group of architects said. “This situation led us to another of the design decisions, to create an organic shape, amoebas that would adapt to the different requirements”. An organic shape laid out in an “apparently random” way, facilitating the appearance of a number of alternative routes to make it possible for different groups of people to use it at the same time.

Indeed, the team of architects led by Luis Zufiaur increased their creativity to ensure that more of the surface area was taken advantage of than initially planned. “The initial approach on the part of the company was to only dedicate the free space on the ground floor to showroom space. Quickly, after the early conversations, a more ambitious proposal was put forward consisting of occupying all the space available”.

In its final configuration, the building consists of an access area, an ample hall, the laboratory area and the showroom area on the ground floor; the first floor houses the Fagor showroom area, in addition to a training room, an area for demonstrations and a meeting room. One of the project’s main challenges was to join the two levels together in a fluid way, eliminating the sensation of separation. This was done by installing an imposing metal staircase that curves around parallel to the perimeter of the building, which turns the simple matter of going from one floor to the next into an attractive addition to the visit.

There is abundant space to display the whole range of Fagor Industrial products: the ground floor has a surface area of 500 square metres, of which 380 are covered by a mezzanine and the remaining 120, located right next to the access area, enjoy a double-storey ten-metre high open space.