Mirador del Carmen center, Estepona

Mirador del Carmen center, Estepona

The Mirador del Carmen is a socio-cultural centre located at the western end of the seafront promenade, near the lighthouse. The building is a slender 13-storey tower, first announced as a faro (lighthouse) and part opened in March 2023. The plan area of each floor is 100 square metres.

From the Mirador del Carmen, Cielo Cafe upper terrace, take in spectacular views.

Cielo Sky Bar

Cielo Skybar is located on the 12th floor of the Mirador del Carmen. It can be reached via the lift entrance on the pedestrianised Avenida del Carmen. The Cielo Skybar, which is an enclosed space, offers panoramic views of the Estepona coastline. It also has an open air unshaded upper terrace, ideal for summer evenings or sunny winter days. There is also a small observation deck with telescope.

The entrance fee is 3€ per person (1€ for residents of Estepona), to be paid at the reception on the ground floor. Keep the ticket as the fee will be deducted from your purchases in the café. Visitors can also skip the café and enjoy the views and take photographs from the upper viewing terrace. As capacity is limited to 40 people in the Cielo Sky Bar and 15 people on the upper viewing terrace, queues may form on the ground floor to access the lift. The Cielo Sky Bar is open daily from 09.00 hrs until 21.00 hrs and 02.00 at the weekend. The Cielo Skybar was inaugurated on 22 September 2024. Cielo Skybar Cafe offers coffee and toast at reasonable prices in the morning and drinks at nightclub prices.

The Skybar and restaurant is run as a 20 year consesson by Grupo Holding lead by Juan José Martin who also runs other popular outlets in Estepona such as A’poniente, Soho, Templo Estepona, Ajetreo, Sala Duende, Rick’s café, Rick’s Corner, Rick’s centro, Vinilo, Avocado, Plata Beach, 97, Trampantojo, Solbericar and Wacapark. In July 2023 there were media reports that the Town Hall had issued a 20 year consession to Inversiones Delmar, something which appears not to have transpired. The roof terrace was opened along with the building inauguration in March 2023.

Gastro Bar

A restaurant on the 10th and 11th Floor opened on the 8th November 2024 and is open Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings.

Library (of Contemporary Cultures)

A modern and extensive library called 'Biblioteca de Culturas Contemporáneas' (Library of Contemporary Cultures) occupies the first eight floors of the building and was opened in late 2024. "The project is based on creating a transversal, innovative, accessible, accessible and future-oriented library, a space designed for people's comfort and learning and not merely for storage".

Floor One - The Children's Room located on the first level of the library, along with the library's administration.
Floor Two - The Future Room is for teenagers aged 14 to 18; a meeting place for group work, individual work, reading or creating audiovisual content.
Floor 3 to 8 - The Main library with floors connected by staircase.
Floor Three - Consultation and periodicals, with an area for reading, study and relaxation. This room has a centre of interest bookshelf called New Expressions, which focuses on new contemporary narratives (literature, art, music and film). There are also be shelves for new publications and another for specialised magazines.
Floor Four - Dedicated to study and research specialising in the sea and the environment, with access to the digital and physical specialist catalogue.
Floor Five - CoWorking area that can be reserved for work groups of students, researchers or workers.
Floor Six and Seven - Dedicated to studies and workshops. There will also be a tiered area where workshops, conferences and courses can be offered.
Floor Eight - Space where audiovisual, cinema, music and radio coexist. There is a booth for podcast, voice and radio recordings. There are seats with a built-in tablet so that users can listen to music in a programme that Spotify will design for the Mirador del Carmen.

The library is open to the public, and is free, and universal. No registration is required to access the library, however to borrow books, you must be a member of the Andalusian Public Library Network.

Any journalist or member of the public, of any nationality, can visit the library, work in the library, or simply enjoy a good book and the views of Estepona and the Strait of Gibraltar.

Mirador del Carmen Library is open 09.00 to 21.00 hrs Monday to Friday. Admission: Free   Events at the Library
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Mirador del Carmen Library, Estepona Photo Gary Edwards

Music Conservatory

The building also houses a Music Conservatory which began its first courses in September 2024.

Mirador del Carmen Exhibition Centre.

This large exhibition space on the lower floors of the Mirador del Carmen Tower has its entrance on the seafront promenade. It opened in April 2023.

Thecurrent and fifth exhibition is Revealing Reality  (Desvelar la realidad) and runs from March 28 to July 20, 2025. In the exhibition Unveiling Reality, we explore the everyday, the soul of objects and scenes from our closest surroundings, viewing them through the unique perspectives of ten selected artists: These include Esperanza Parada (1928–2011), Amalia Avia (1930–2011), Julio López (1930–2018), Francisco López (1932–2017), María Moreno (1933–2020), Carmen Laffón (1934–2021), Antonio López (born 1936), Isabel Quintanilla (1938–2017), Cristóbal Toral (born 1940), and José Hernández (1944–2013). More than eighty paintings, drawings and sculptures have been brought together for this exhibition. These creations are linked by generational, emotional and familial ties. Through their works, the artists present different realities, ranging from urban landscapes and interiors to still lifes and gardens, and from portraits to nudes. We are confronted with intimate, everyday scenes, as well as disturbing images that captivate and seduce us and draw us into the magical realm of the surreal, yet grounded in reality.

The fourth exhibition was works of art entitled Drawing Modernity from Fortuny to Tàpies. (Dibujar la modernidad de Fortuny a Tàpies) and ran from 26 October 2024 to 23 February 2025 featured works of art on loan from the MAPFRE Foundation Collection.  The exhibition begins with drawings that represented a profound change in the field of visual arts in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Works by Ignacio Pinazo, Edgar Degas, Auguste Rodin and Gustav Klimt are excellent examples of this historical transformation. This includes early works by Picasso, as well as pieces by Spanish artists such as Nonell. These represent a turning point in the complex history of visual arts in Spain, building on the work of artists like Darío de Regoyos.

The third exhibition was works of art entitled 'La Mujer en la Coleccion Zuloaga' (Women in the Zukoaga Collection) which ran from 19th July 2024 to 29th September 2024. Exhibition organised by the ZULOAGA FOUNDATION with the collaboration of Estepona Town Hall. Since the beginning of the 19th century, the Zuloaga family has been collecting art and books. Since the end of the 20th century, the family has been organising exhibitions through the ‘Art for all’ project throughout Spain. This female-themed exhibition pays tribute to the women who have contributed to the formation of this collection. An exhibition in which we show the collection of works of members of the family through artists who have depicted different aspects of the social situation of women.

The second exhibition was the set of the 80 famous prints by Goya entitled 'The Disasters of Wars of War' which ran from 18th November 2023 to 10th March 2024. These Goya prints were on loan from the MAPFRE Foundation Collection.

The inaugural exhibition was 'Live the Paintings' (5th April 2023 to 25th September 2023) a series on loan from the Carmen Thyssen Museum in Málaga and the Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection. It began with "romanticism" and included "works belonging to post-impressionism, modernism and noucentisme to continue with the avant-garde and end with pop art", as the artistic director of the Museo Carmen Thyssen Málaga, Lourdes Moreno explained one of the highlights of the exhibition was be the painting entitled 'Estepona Beach with a View of the Rock of Gibraltar', by the artist Fritz Bamberger, which dates from 1855.

Mirador del Carmen Exhibition Centre open 10.00 to 14.00 hrs and 16.00 to 20.00 hrs Tuesday to Sunday. Mondays closed, except holidays. Admission: General 6€ Reduced 3€.   More about the exhibitions

Mirador del Carmen Auditorium

In October 2023 the Auditorio del Mirador del Carmen (Auditorium Mirador del Carmen) was inaugurated. The auditorium which is only open for special events is reached from the lower seafront promenade entrance and is located near the exhibition hall. It comfortably seats 200. It features an unusual backdrop, as it looks out through a large glass panel to the sea front promenade and the beach.

The inaugural event was the award ceremony of the III International Poetry Prize 'Ciudad de Estepona' won by Mexican poet and doctor, Orlando Mondragón for his work 'Paisaje nevado con patinadores y trampa para pájaros'. The Estepona choir have also given their free Christmas and Easter concerts in this new venue.

Underground Car Park

There is an underground carpark reached from the west side of Avenida del Carmen. It has remained closed since the building was opened.

Location

Avenida del Carmen