A new open-air, sea-facing theatre has been unveiled within the historic Santa Clotilde Gardens on Spain’s Costa Brava, creating a striking cultural destination at one of Catalonia’s most visited heritage sites. Designed by scob, the intervention brings a 300-seat performance space to the western edge of the clifftop gardens, overlooking Cala Boadella and the Mediterranean coastline.
The project has been commissioned by the Lloret de Mar City Council as part of a wider effort to diversify the site’s appeal beyond traditional heritage gardens, which already attract 130,000 visitors per year.
Built into an existing natural clearing, the theatre uses the site’s slope to create tiered seating that directs views out towards the ocean and surrounding mountains, turning the landscape itself into a permanent stage set. A circular performance area, dressing rooms and a discreet service building complete the scheme.
Materially, the project draws directly from the historic setting. Locally used sablón, a decomposed granite soil already present across the gardens, has been used throughout the seating tiers, pathways, walls and rendered surfaces to ensure continuity with the original early 20th-century design language.
For the wider Lloret de Mar destination, the project strengthens the gardens’ role not only as a major tourism draw but as a year-round venue for small-scale musical performances, lectures, workshops and educational programmes linked to local heritage. Since opening, the theatre has quickly established itself as a cultural meeting point within one of the Costa Brava’s most iconic locations.
