The Cantabrian Maritime Museum Restaurant

The Cantabrian Maritime Museum Restaurant 

Zooco Estudio

The Cantabrian Maritime Museum Restaurant
© David Zarzoso

ARCHITECTS
Zooco Estudio

PHOTOGRAPHS
David Zarzoso

AREA
620 M²

YEAR
2023

LOCATION
Santander, Spain

CATEGORY
Restaurant, Restaurant & Bar Interiors

The Cantabrian Maritime Museum Restaurant
© David Zarzoso

Located on Severiano Ballesteros Street in Santander, Spain, the restaurant was conceived as part of an architectural complex that also includes an Oceanographic Center designed by Vicente Roig Forner and Ángel Hernández Morales, built between 1975 and 1978.

The original building consists of two square bodies connected by a canopy, with a concrete structure. The interior is distributed over three floors around a central courtyard covered by a vault of paraboloid membranes.

The Cantabrian Maritime Museum Restaurant
© David Zarzoso
The Cantabrian Maritime Museum Restaurant
© David Zarzoso

In 2003, a renovation and extension was carried out which included the extension of the west façade and the roof of the terrace with a pyramidal aluminum structure, thus altering the initial conception of the building.

The project provides the museum with a new space on the second floor to house its restaurant and terrace.

The Cantabrian Maritime Museum Restaurant
© David Zarzoso
The Cantabrian Maritime Museum Restaurant
© David Zarzoso

To accomplish this, the project involved the creation of a new volume that provides a solution to the pathologies present in the roof and façade of the building.

The square morphology of this volume is the result of the addition of 4 triangles that regularize and complete the paraboloids of the original building, thus directing the protagonism towards the interior to the rawness of these concrete paraboloids.

The Cantabrian Maritime Museum Restaurant
© David Zarzoso
The Cantabrian Maritime Museum Restaurant
© David Zarzoso

In a sense, the geometry becomes a recovered element, a vestige of the past, and the protagonist of the interior of the restaurant. Treated as an artistic element, the triangular wooden false ceilings frame it.

The exterior features a glass box seeking maximum transparency (nuanced by textiles in the form of curtains, depending on the orientation), allowing expansive views of the extraordinary landscape of the Bay of Santander, lending to a feeling of being at sea.

The Cantabrian Maritime Museum Restaurant
© David Zarzoso


The Cantabrian Maritime Museum Restaurant
© David Zarzoso
The Cantabrian Maritime Museum Restaurant
© David Zarzoso
The Cantabrian Maritime Museum Restaurant
© David Zarzoso
The Cantabrian Maritime Museum Restaurant
© David Zarzoso


The Cantabrian Maritime Museum Restaurant
© David Zarzoso
The Cantabrian Maritime Museum Restaurant
© David Zarzoso
The Cantabrian Maritime Museum Restaurant
© David Zarzoso
The Cantabrian Maritime Museum Restaurant
© David Zarzoso
The Cantabrian Maritime Museum Restaurant
© David Zarzoso
The Cantabrian Maritime Museum Restaurant
© David Zarzoso
The Cantabrian Maritime Museum Restaurant
© David Zarzoso
The Cantabrian Maritime Museum Restaurant
© David Zarzoso
The Cantabrian Maritime Museum Restaurant
© David Zarzoso
The Cantabrian Maritime Museum Restaurant
© David Zarzoso
The Cantabrian Maritime Museum Restaurant
© David Zarzoso
The Cantabrian Maritime Museum Restaurant
© David Zarzoso


The Cantabrian Maritime Museum Restaurant