Otalora Topagunea offers company groups four training rooms, three small meeting rooms and its own dining service for courses, workshops, reflection days and videoconferences. The center sits in a restored tower house in Aretxabaleta, in the Basque province of Gipuzkoa, and it is run as the development center for the MONDRAGON cooperatives.
Seminars and company events
The official site presents the spaces as suited to company needs: ordinary meetings, training sessions, working days, reflection days and videoconferences. Furniture and equipment can be adapted to the activity you plan, so tell the team what you need and the room is prepared accordingly. The setting is rural, with open landscape around the buildings, which suits a group that wants to work away from an office for a day or two.
Otalora's own purpose is training. It supports MONDRAGON cooperatives and their people with programs on organizational culture, learning and development, cooperative education and communities of practice. That background shapes the rooms: they are built for courses, presentations and workshops rather than for receptions.
Weddings and receptions
Otalora does not present itself as a wedding or party venue. The site describes working spaces, meeting rooms and dining rooms for company and training use, and nothing on it offers the place for weddings.
Rooms and capacities
Four rooms are listed for courses, presentations and workshops: Sala Udalaitz, Sala Torre, Sala Besaide and Otalora II. Otalora II is a separate building added in 1992 in the style of the surrounding farmhouses, with a functional interior. For smaller groups there are three meeting rooms, Urkulu, Urbaltz and Arbe, described as equipped, flexible and discreet. The site does not publish capacities for any room, so ask for seating numbers and layouts when you enquire.
Catering
The center runs its own dining service and presents it as a point of pride. Guests eat either in large shared dining rooms or in small private dining rooms. The site names the dining spaces Comedor, Udalaitz, Urbaltz and Arbe. Ask the team about menus, dietary needs and how many people each dining room holds.
Accommodation
When the building was converted in the 1980s it included lodging for cooperative managers. The center later turned the bedrooms into meeting rooms. The current site lists no accommodation, so plan lodging separately in the area if your event runs over several days.
History and setting
The Casa-Torre de Otalora goes back to the mid 14th century, when the Otalora family, closely tied to the church of San Juan Bautista, built a defensive tower house in Aozaratza. In 1562, Sancho López de Otálora, a member of the Royal Council of Charles V, added a residential structure to the original military one. A fire in 1586 destroyed the building and its library, and it was rebuilt with Renaissance ornament. The family moved to a palace in Aretxabaleta in 1762 and the tower was reused as a farmhouse, which damaged it. In 1981 Laboral Kutxa bought and rebuilt it, keeping the noble parts and fitting the interior for training, with a dining room and lodging. It has housed the MONDRAGON development activity since 1984, and its spaces were refurbished in 2018.
Getting there
The center is at Barrio Aozaraza 2, 20550 Aretxabaleta, Gipuzkoa. The site has a location page but gives no transport details, so ask the team about the best way to arrive by car or public transport. The phone number on the site is +34 943 712 406.
