Religious conversion: the latest phase in the evolution of this historic monastery in Jerez transforms it into an archive and civic offices.

The recasting of a former seventeenth-century monastery in the Andalucian city of Jerez as municipal offices represents the latest phase in the building's protracted and colourful history. An evolving succession of uses, first as a hospital, then monastery then barracks (occupied by French troops during the Peninsular War) also speaks of a remarkable physical durability and adaptability that makes resonant connections with the city's history. This is no mimsily fragile relic, fretted over by conservation bodies, but a doughty survivor of the cumulative effects of time, war and social change.

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Overseen by the Seville-based partnership of Antonio Martinez Garcia & Juan Luis Trillo de Leyva, the building's latest incarnation as offices, archive and exhibition space is another pragmatic adaptation to new demands (mercifully less exacting than Napoleon's). The Seville duo's scheme preserves what is worth preserving, notably the Cloister of the Novices, and also adds major new parts, executed in an understated, yet recognisably contemporary language. The outcome is a powerful dialogue between the historical strata and the new insertions.

The original plan of the monastery was based around a large central courtyard attached to a smaller Cloister of the Novices. The new work is focused arcund this smaller cloister, which is now enclosed and incorporated into a new wing as a soaring, double-height exhibition space. Though no longer open to the elements, the courtyard void still admits light, through a series of deep slots strategically cut into the roof and walls of the floors above. Two new office storeys wrap over and around the cloister, and a salvaged statue of Saint Augustine, to whose order the monastery was originally devoted, presides over the remodelled ensemble.

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In their imperviousness and plainness, the white rendered walls of the new wing are modern reinterpretations of Iberian vernacular, as are the patio spaces that infiltrate the complex, subtly filtering light, setting up intriguing through views. A narrow patio separates the new volume from the nineteenth-century Casa del Capitan (the former barracks commander's house), now refurbished to accommodate various ancillary functions. Offices are flexible, open-plan spaces, linked by a new spine of vertical circulation. The upper floor is largely toplit and from here a pair of big picture windows frame vistas out to the mountains south of Jerez and its alcazar. Materials (dark timber, concrete, white marble) and detailing display an appropriately monastic rigour. Though sensitive to the nuances of history, the scheme has a boldness in both conception and execution that lets architecture of all eras speak for itself. C.S.