Aerial view of the building

A modern, functional building in white limestone, with a central pyramid flanked by three glass towers, houses the President's Office of the regional government.

Nearby, the older, more traditional Ajuria-Enea House provides the Basque President with his official residence and doubles as the venue for institutional acts and meetings. The new building was conceived as an administrative office and a place to present the daily work done by the regional government.

This eminently practical office building is sited in a residential district of town houses with gardens, several schools, a hospital and a number of institutional headquarters.

Interior view of the glass pyramid

Built on a corner, the office is crowned by its instantly recognizable glass pyramid, flanked to the sides by glass turrets. Beneath the pyramid is a large, brightly lit central patio in marble, the venue for major social and political events, receptions and official encounters with leading regional, Spanish and international representatives. The patio also serves as a control and monitoring room during elections.

Central courtyard for events

Organization and circulation are the two key factors inside the building and every effort has been made to make both clear and easy. Space is distributed around the ring-shaped construction, making it easy to control and simplify circulation to an extraordinary extent.

The President's Office is located at number 2 on the calle Navarra, where the street converges with the Nieves Cano parade in Vitoria, the capital of the Basque Autonomous Community. Altogether, building and surrounding garden occupy a 2,330-square-metre site in the city's pleasant, spacious "El Batán" residential area, close to the Basque Parliament building, the university campus and a stone's throw from the city's attractive old quarter.

Meeting hall

Built in the early 1990s by architect Javier Egaña Oyarzabal's team, the building houses the administrative units of the President's Office, including the Office's own General Secretariat, the General Secretariat for Foreign Action and the General Secretariat for Communication, together with the President's own suite of offices, the Cabinet Meeting Room and the room set aside for press and media appearances. The decoration includes some major works of contemporary Basque art and others from the Basque crafts tradition.