Layer cake: in a city dominated by Calatrava's formal extravagance, Chipperfield brings a moment of calm to Valencia's choppy waters.

Until recently, the Spanish city of Valencia was dominated by a number of large white edifices of the wedding cake variety, designed by local hero Santiago Calatrava. Now, with the completion of David Chipperfield's hospitality building for the 32nd America's Cup, here is a building for those with a more refined taste.

The building is not only far easier on the eye than Calatrava's flamboyant skeletal creations, but was also far easier to construct, meeting the client's break-neck programme to be designed and constructed in just 11 months. Emerging at pace from a final head to head with Jean Nouvel, the Chipperfield building--loosely described by the architect as an elegant car park--epitomises simplicity, with four deep decks stacked and staggered to optimise views across sea and city.

Broadening the client's original brief that set target capacities for a number of private VIP suites and luxury boutiques, Chipperfield immediately recognised the opportunity to use the building to break down the sort of elitist barriers that often surround sports like sailing. Creating a huge harbourside foyer, therefore, the ground and first floors have been made fully accessible to the public, not only elevating the so-called V-VIPs to enjoy extensive views, but anyone and everyone who happens to be passing along the broad esplanade that neatly houses two levels of car parking.

Unsurprisingly for a community of hardy sailors, the building is largely external, with approximately 60 per cent of the floor area devoted to generous shady terraces. Equally unsurprising is the fact that the remaining 40 per cent is largely devoted to the finer things in life, with cool bars and restaurants, and an exclusive wellness centre to pamper the fraternity's less hardy sailing widows and widowers.

Prominently located at the heart of an ambitious harbourside regeneration plan, the building commands stunning views, to and from, and is at once familiar and unique; part luxury liner and part Modernist slab, but not simply one or the other.

Chipperfield it seems enjoys ambiguity, and is not convinced either way as to whether or not 'dense minimalism' (a phrase coined by Aaron Betsky) is an appropriate categorisation of his work. This building, however, remains strangely pleasing in its ambiguity, being both dense and minimal, with a curious presence that encapsulates lightness and mass. With 2m deep decks and 4m high terraces, the ratio between solid and void gives occupants and distant observers two completely different experiences of the building; one massive, the other more ephemeral.

As quickly as it was created, the pavilion has become one of the city's most popular meeting points, serving in the short term as a promotional venue for the activities of the America's Cup Management company (ACM) and more long term as a public destination. Chipperfield explains that its popularity is derived from the fact that 'people get it'. When considering this simple building, people's minds don't have to make the sort of stratospheric leap that is required, for example, when considering a Calatrava building. As such it is easier to interpret.

Healthily distinct perhaps from his more robust and stolid buildings, and by far more conspicuous, this festive project has given Chipperfield the opportunity to quickly consolidate and consider his working processes, and quoting the adage that 'if you want something done quickly, ask someone who's busy' he recalls some of the key lessons learnt along the way. First, the process itself demanded that decisions were made quickly and not revisited, compressing and focusing the project's intellectual effort that he admits can on occasion be unnecessarily protracted. Second, it has reinforced his attitude to reduce buildings to the fewest number of components, with this pavilion having only six materials and six details; and third, it has reminded him, perhaps for the first time since Henley (AR January 1997), that it is possible to design a popular public building while maintaining a number of highly principled architectural preoccupations.

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Successfully merging two of Le Corbusier's enduring preoccupations (the Domino model and the influence of the ocean-going liner), without simply referencing their aesthetic, this building reminds us of Chipperfield's Modernist roots. Citing the early influence of heroic British Modernists such as Patrick Hodgkinson, this building also bears more than a passing resemblance to Denys Lasdun's stratified European Investment Bank (AR November 1981), and National Theatre designs, with its terraced composition and socio-communal aspirations. In a recent interview with Alejandro Zaera-Polo the burning question that was never quite asked was, 'Go on David, admit you're a diehard Modernist'. Perhaps then, with this building now complete, a blunter question may be more reasonably justified.

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