Greenhouse Gates

“An important work of architecture will create polemics.” // Richard Meier

The Poniente Almeriense is an inhospitable stretch of southern Spain marked by little rain fall, poor soils, and strong ocean blown winds. At the heart of it is El Ejido, and despite a harsh environment it is home to the largest concentration of greenhouses in Europe, some 30,000 hectares of industrial polytunnels producing the melons, peppers, cucumbers and, most importantly, cheap tomatoes for the rest of the continent. The greenhouses are a seemingly endless mass of imposing steel gates, and stretched plastic layered such that it obscures anyone working inside – a strange architecture of environmental necessity and commercial interest baking under the Almerian sun.