OPTIMUS has supplied the sound reinforcement and PA system for the Espacio Sociocultural Pagoeta (Pagoeta Gune Soziokulturala) in Urretxu, the result of the town council's refurbishment of the former parish church of Nuestra Señora de Lourdes. The project combines high-end line array loudspeakers with a Compact LITE all-in-one PA and voice alarm system, offering a complete solution that meets both the acoustic demands of cultural use and the regulatory requirements for public facilities.
From neo-Gothic parish church to cultural venue
The former parish church of Nuestra Señora de Lourdes is a neo-Gothic building constructed around 1945 in the Pagoeta valley. In August 2021, Urretxu town council acquired the property to renovate it and turn it into a sociocultural venue answering the town's cultural, educational, and social needs.
Turning a neo-Gothic church into a cultural venue preserves the building's heritage value (dressed masonry, nave geometry with buttresses, significant height) but calls for adapting the space acoustically to uses that are very different from the original ones: presentations with amplified voice, concerts, screenings, theatre, or civic events. All of these call for uniform coverage, high intelligibility, and precise control of the sound field to avoid the reflections typical of a tall nave with hard surfaces.
The OPTIMUS solution
The sound reinforcement is delivered by P08-EN54 loudspeakers, a high-end line array system particularly suited to spaces with complex acoustics. Line array technology allows sound to be directed in a controlled way towards the audience area, minimising the energy radiated towards ceilings and side surfaces, and reducing the reverberant contribution that erodes intelligibility. The four columns are also EN 54-certified, which makes them suitable to double as voice alarm speakers.
At the centre of the system is a Compact LITE unit, the OPTIMUS PA and voice alarm solution for medium-sized installations, which brings together the audio matrix, two 460 W RMS amplifiers, and zone control in a single piece of kit. The ME-200L unit serves as an emergency microphone and for operational announcements. The whole system is backed up by lead-acid batteries that keep it running in the event of a mains power failure, a mandatory requirement for any public facility with an evacuation function.
A cross-sector solution for heritage spaces and places of worship
The Espacio Sociocultural Pagoeta is an example of how PA and sound reinforcement can be integrated into heritage spaces without compromising either the architecture or the building's original character, adapting them to new uses with technical soundness.
The same technical combination (line array loudspeakers + Compact LITE system) works just as well in active churches, cathedrals, parish churches, mosques, and places of worship, where the acoustic challenges are the same: high naves, hard surfaces, and the need for total intelligibility, both for the spoken liturgy and for music. OPTIMUS offers solutions for cultural centres, concert halls, auditoriums, theatres, places of worship, and repurposed heritage spaces, combining EN 54-certified equipment with high-end acoustic technology to match the demands of each project.
