thu 17 dec 2015, 14:35

Church is the skatepark

Our editors abroad

Amsterdam –

From the outside it seems the St. barbara cathedral in the Spanish Llanera, in the province of Asturias, a normal place of worship of a hundred years or so old. Only is there not prayers, but practicing hip young people their ‘ollies’ on brightly coloured halfpipes.

Photo: Red Bull

Since the closure of the local munitions factory, decades ago now, the building empty. And that – along with the knowledge that in the village near Gijon and Oviedo 200 days per year of rain fall – inspired a group of young people to the transformation of the church into an indoor skate park. This month is the result of five years of work proudly to the press presented.

“The building has a great architecture,” says Ernesto Fernandez Rey, one of the initiators, against The Guardian. “It is very high, and there is a lot of light.” The Madrid artist Okuda San Miguel got air of the project, and offered to the murals. “I was immediately in love with the church. And now it is my personal Sistine Chapel”, he compares his work with the world-famous by Michelangelo’s frescoed chapel inside the Vatican city.