Gordailua

Gordailua is the Provincial Government of Gipuzkoa's Heritage Collection Centre. The centre’s principal goal is to preserve, protect and showcase the province's cultural heritage.

Gordailua provides integrated management for collections belonging to different individuals and organisations. It houses thousands of ethnographic, artistic and archaeological items. The centre performs research on its own collections and provides facilities for external researchers studying areas of cultural heritage.

It is also a resource centre, working with and for the province's museum network to ensure resource optimisation and sustainability.

Gordailua is the material archive of Gipuzkoa's memory.

What it is Gordailua?

Gordailua is owned and run by the Gipuzkoa Provincial Department of Culture, Tourism, Youth and Sports and houses the provincial government’s heritage collections. It also contains items from the San Telmo Museum and other public and private organisations, including work by the artist Nestor Basterretxea. Most of this material consists of ethnographic items and works of art, totalling over 70,000 objects.

Since 2015, Gordailua has also been the province's archaeology and palaeontology depository, housing items found in digs, surveys and troves throughout the province. This depository is stored in over 10 000 cases.
Gordailua has a programme of acquisitions. It also analyses any offers of donation, sale or loan of items made by individuals or organisations. Criteria for acceptance include the condition of the piece, its contribution to the collections, whether it is representative of a given period, territory, social sector, etc.

The building

Gordailua was designed by architects Pedro Astigarraga and José Leon Lasarte and erected between 2009 and 2011. The slats on the four sides of the rectangular building give it the appearance of a container. Its unusual outline stands out among the surrounding homes and industrial buildings. The centre occupies a site of just under one acre (3,445 square metres), including the adjoining gardens. The three-storey building itself has a total floor area of 9,116 square metres (98,000 square feet).

The items are held in eight stores, covering 70% of the total floor area (around 6,000 square metres or 65,000 sq ft.). In the depositories, the objects are kept at appropriate levels of humidity and temperature, depending on their composition. In all cases, the relative humidity is kept below 60% and the temperature between 18 and 20º. There are also special rooms conditioned for metals, paper and fabrics.
 
In addition, Gordailua has offices, restoration workshops (for archaeological, palaeontological, ethnographic and artistic objects), registration and photography rooms, quarantine and transit zones, a library, two consultation and research rooms and two multi-purpose rooms, which are used for seminars, lectures, exhibitions, etc.

A geothermal device and photovoltaic roof panels help reduce the building's energy dependency. In the event of a power failure, an autonomous generator comes into service to maintain climate conditions.

How to get here

Contact

Appointment

Visits to the centre are by prior appointment only. Please select the nature of your visit in the SERVICES section or contact us directly.