Auditorio de Tenerife

The Auditorio de Tenerife is a concert and congress hall perched on the seafront promenade of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava and inaugurated in 2003. Its sweeping white concrete arch — asymmetric, blade-like, evoking a breaking wave or an outstretched wing — has become the defining silhouette of the island's capital and a landmark of contemporary expressionist architecture. Calatrava, also responsible for Valencia's Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias, engineered the shell structure to house a main auditorium of around 1,600 seats. Evening performances by the Orquesta Sinfónica de Tenerife are accompanied by the building's reflection shimmering across the harbour basin, making the experience as visual as it is musical.