The Can Ricart municipal sports complex is a building located in the heart of the south of the Raval district, an area where important activities have been carried out in recent years. The equipment is significant for the revitalisation of the neighbourhood in its traditionally more degraded sector, and must contribute to the integration of all the social sectors that live in the area through its use in sports and wellness activities.
The building completes the block between the Rambla del Raval and the Els Horts de Sant Pau Gardens. Architecturally, the project's strategy was based on pre-existing conditions that made it particularly complex, as it had to integrate two big enough buildings, such as the Raval pavilion by the architect Jordi Farrando (from 1989) and the industrial 19th century building of Can Ricart, presumably by the master builder Josep Fontserè. The main effort of the architects has been to make it a functionally compact and functionally coherent set, which volumetrically maintains the reading of the three diverse bodies that make it up: the two existing buildings and the new construction that contains the swimming pool, formally autonomous.
The Can Ricart building, which was in a rather bad state, has been rehabilitated in the spirit of the original in its most defining characteristics. The façade by Josep Fontserè has been rehabilitated, recovering the stucco’s original colours, and a double-height central space where the Ricart family used to have their contracting room has been exposed. This space has been rehabilitated with sensitivity and a certain discretion. A skylight that had been over the central space has been recovered. On the rest of the façades, more abused by the multiple interventions carried out over the years to annex and demolish buildings around them, the work consisted of recovering the original order of holes and giving a unifying patina that allows you to subtly see the wounds of history on its walls.
The new building is austere in materials and formally contained. The façade is made of exposed concrete, which has been given a texture that wants to be a tribute to the beginnings of the textile industry in Catalonia in this area of the city.
