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Can Ginestar
Only the cellar remains of the original country house, as it was completely renovated. The rehabilitation of 1904 destroyed the beautiful architectural lines that it possessed, characteristics of the Catalan manor house, despite the remarkable interest formed by the final result, classifiable within the Catalan Art Nouveau current of medievalist orientation. It should even be noted that the pre-existing scheme is clearly maintained with a central body of three frames, to which the chapel on the right and a body completed by a gallery on the left are added. The house is in the middle of a garden surrounded by a winding wall. The resulting set contains a large number of elements of medieval reminiscence. It has interesting internal decorative elements, among which the beautiful ceramic details, added in the last refurbishment, and the beams from 1904 stand out. On the ground floor there is a lintel from 1403 and inside another from 1669. While on the first floor there is one from 1703 and crowning the building the one from 1904. In 1904, the rehabilitation project was carried out by Joan Bta. Modolell. It consists of demolition works and reconstruction of the entire hall that contains the gallery, as well as the one-metre elevation of the central part of the roof and the construction of the chapel and the fence wall. It also includes the repairs of the façades.1904 - 1905
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1907
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1909
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1912
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Romero House
On the initiative of Elisa Romero, a request was made to build a residence on the property of Victoriano de la Riba i Ruiz. It was the company Fills de Magí Campreciós who carried out the work on this residence. At the beginning of the 1930s, Dr. Rodríguez Arias and Dr. Vilardell set up a rest home there, called ‘Bonavista’, which operated until the 1950s; later it became a private home; and due to the extensive garden it had, part of the estate has been reduced by the buildings that have been constructed. It consists of a residential building with a ground floor and a first floor. It is notable for its pompousness; in fact, Andreu Audet specialised in the construction of theatres, which is why the magnificence of the house is so closely related to the fact that the two lateral bodies were converted into large towers crowned by domes covered with mosaic. He used academicist elements in the building: fluted pilasters, composite capitals, balusters, oval oculi, stepped crowns, hydrias... The so-called ‘El Sanatori’ (The Sanatorium) is, thus, an example of the influence of the French Académie des Beaux-Arts on the formal repertoire of Catalan Noucentisme. The interior layout is based around a central covered vestibule-courtyard, with a magnificent gallery on the ground floor.1922
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1963 - 1965
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Walden 7
RBTA - Ricardo Bofill Taller de Arquitectura, Ricardo Bofill Leví
With a lower budget than that usually used for social housing, and with atypical financing instruments, Ricard Bofill and Taller de Arquitectura manage to carry out a set of homes that start from the criticism of the existing city and propose architectural and existential alternatives. These are 18 towers that curve as they rise until they touch the neighbouring towers, leaving in the centre large, interconnected voids that encourage the relationship between the different homes. The set shows on the outside facings covered with red ceramic and with very small openings. The inner courtyards, on the other hand, are treated with very bright colours. The types of housing try numerous combinations starting from a square module, which can be doubled or form groups of four, establishing new possibilities of interrelation between the inhabitants of each unit.1970 - 1975
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Taller de Arquitectura
RBTA - Ricardo Bofill Taller de Arquitectura, Ricardo Bofill Leví
In 1973 Ricardo Bofill discovered a disused concrete factory on the outskirts of Barcelona, an industrial complex from the beginning of the 20th century. "In front of me - he says - there were 30 immense silos, a very tall chimney, four kilometers of underground, gigantic machinery rooms. During my first visit to the old cement factory, I suddenly thought that something horrible could become something very beautiful, just as idiocy can sometimes be transformed into genius. The concrete factory corresponds to the first period of the industrialisation of Barcelona and was not built according to a previous general plan but by juxtaposing different elements. The result was then a series of volumes added to each other and different manufacturing chains that recall vernacular architecture but with an industrial aspect. I kept going deeper and little by little I realised that the different aesthetics developed since the last World War were present in the factory: the hard and sculptural treatment of matter, with broken volumes, stairs that go nowhere, powerful spaces already useless and strange proportions yet full of magic. I decided to keep that factory with the intention of transforming the roughness into a work of art and set up my Architecture Workshop there which, in the long term, could be used as a foundation for research on the shape and design of the city. This transformation has been carried out gradually and even now I continue to add new workspaces by adapting the old ruins still standing. However, I believe that the factory will always be a work in progress, which is part of its fascination". After deconstructing the existing volumes, there were eight silos that Ricardo Bofill adapted to accommodate the offices, model laboratory, archives, library and a space, the largest of all, which preserves the skin and breadth of the old building and is named "La Catedral". This has the function of an exhibition hall for the projects, multimedia projections, meeting with clients and visitors and social and cultural gatherings linked to the professional activity of the architect. The Architecture Workshop is surrounded by large green spaces planted with olive, cypress, palm and eucalyptus trees.1973 - 1975
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Sant Just Park
The project consisted of locating a residential complex on a landscaped property with a steep slope located on the outskirts of Barcelona. The previous step consisted of ordering some volumes in the section of land preserving the tree masses. Analysing the project carried out at the beginning of the decade of the 1970s today, I observe how those stepped buildings against the slope of the mountain – designed with an eye on Coderch, for me the last great master, and which was built with artisanal brick, melis pinewood and black iron chimneys that emerge between the pines – withstand the pass of time quite well. The plants have been covering the stepped façades as an extension of the garden and, together with the nobility of the materials used, have contributed to this good conservation over time.1974 - 1977
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Adaptation of Torreblanca Park
Norman Cinnamond i Planàs, Carlos Ferrater i Lambarri
The land, of about 12 Ha, gently slopes towards the south, and the park is configured on a circuit with three distinct parts: the one facing south, where the old palace was located, which is being rebuilt with vegetation in the form of a labyrinth, surrounded by palm trees, cypress trees and parterres; the lake area, with pergolas, islands, grottoes with a romantic image reminiscent of Stevenson's novels, and the avenue area with cypress trees, statues and paved outdoor areas. In them is a set of elements in the form of episodes, such as a theatre, bar, stands, groups of benches, etc., that will encourage the possibility of multiple activities. The works have maintained and enhanced the current values of the estate, sewing the different areas with a tree-lined avenue creating a second park similar to the first, through a geometry of terraced trapezoids, alternating tree-lined squares with rose gardens protected from noise and wind by landscaped slopes with climbing frames. Likewise, a large open-air hall is created with formations of bananas, planted following the laws of perspective that results in the obtaining of an infinite number of parabolic avenues, reinforcing the geometry and dimensions of the space intended, together with the pine forest and the gardens, for the use of large masses of people.1983
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Sant Just Park II
The large unitary roof and the offset barbican help to accentuate this idea of a compact and unitary building. With reference to the second aspect that has been taken into account when designing these homes, it has been that of their internal organisation. Unlike how it is usually done – with a central staircase that connects the different floors through a set of three crossed staircases that run through the building longitudinally and transversely and resting on double-height spaces – the different floors are gradually connected and related areas of the house to achieve greater spatial richness and interior light. Likewise, the game of double space makes it possible to privatise the use of individual gardens by eliminating the views over the adjacent gardens. Regarding the programme; on the two lower levels are the garage, services, kitchen-dining room and living rooms and on the upper levels are the bedrooms and a multi-purpose space under the roof. The set of stairs and the double-height spaces have allowed several variants of interior distribution. At the top of the estate near the ridge of the mountain is a smaller building with three floors of about 300 m2 each among a forest of pines and carob trees. Access to this building is through a tunnel under the garden, which leads to the parking and community services floor, or through the garden along a small path next to the stone wall flanked by magnolias and blanks leading to the cylindrical volume of the inlet. The aspects that have prevailed in designing this building have been the following: 1) Achieving a good relationship with the outside space where the openings adopt different solutions depending on the use and the conditions of the environment. Thus, the living rooms open onto the large terraces with canopies and pergolas on the south façade, the glass tower on the curb from which the ancient gardens can be viewed, the opening in the form of a large window that groups the children's bedrooms over the back garden, the curtain wall of the library over the forest, the window focusing on the landscape at the end of the corridor and the patterned windows of the service area or the open gaps between the walls on specific visuals. All of them contribute to achieving a good relationship between the different areas and the site. 2) Achieving a complex organisation from the simplicity of the floor plan of the house, in which the spaces overlap fluidly following the order of the structure. 3) Emphasise the construction based on handmade brick closing sheets which, when interrupted, allows to radiograph the mixed construction of metal pillars and concrete slabs with partial aspects such as the use of rigid, articulated knots, of simple support or cantilevered to support the front façade. 4) Finally, the use of noble materials such as the local Nicorella stone, manual bricks "maonets", exposed concrete, teak wood, steel and glass must contribute to the desired integration with the context and to the good aspect of the passage of time that was mentioned at the beginning.1986 - 1988
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1986 - 1989
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1993
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Regional Council of Baix Llobregat
Carlos Ferrater i Lambarri, Xavier Güell i Guix
Inside the enclosure of Torreblanca Park there was an old building, in an almost dilapidated state. A basement intended for cellars and above it a high-rise building intended for agricultural uses. The project proposes a new building that surrounds the old building. The land is depressed by means of landscaped slopes, turning the underground floor into the new building's large hall and exhibition hall. On the upper floor there is the meeting room, taking advantage of the old arched structure with a new roof with a stepped section. The offices of the new Council are located around it. A set of voids created in the old structure provide it with a new spatial dimension reinforced by playing with natural light.1991 - 1994
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Arruga Cinema Studios
Carlos Ferrater i Lambarri, Joan Guibernau
The project arises from the decision to locate the ARRUGA film studios in an industrial estate on the outskirts of Barcelona considering the production of films and commercials as an industrial activity. Thus, a building destined to house a creative activity was confined to coexist in a grey world, without language, like factories and warehouses with the typical hourly activities of industrial estates. Faced with the impossibility of generating a language with its "neighbours", the building becomes an image and reflection of its own essence, showing itself in the only possible way: a building for making films. When it gets dark, the main façade becomes a piece of celluloid, becoming the very activity of the building such as production, post-production, realisation, etc. The rest of the programme is hidden behind the blind box; casting, costumes, props, assembly warehouses, workshops, dressing rooms and services. Finally, the large space intended for the cinematographic set is presented to us in its most neutral form. The construction (materials, structure and installations) of this space is put at the service of the main activity, reinforcing the neutrality of the project. The building is constructed with the technique and prices of an industrial building; an exposed steel structure with fire protection, forged ribbed iron decks, concrete block walls, polished concrete floors, exposed installations and a façade of cement-wood counters. The project incorporates as an external element a linear plantation of Populus tremula a short distance from the main façade. This plant formation reveals to us a new negative interstitial space of the interior. This space relates the internal activity to the external space at the same time as it uses their changing condition. In the summer, a thick green mattress will protect it from the sun, in the autumn it changes colour and clears the leaves, in the winter it becomes a reflection on the large, glazed window, and in the spring it will show the different shades of green. Between this screen of trees and the street of the polygon, an open space is designed for the arrival and circulation of vehicles. Finally, in an industrial estate, a grey box raises a question of architecture; the tension between the envelope and the internal space articulated by the light.1995 - 1997
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Can Ginestar Library
Can Ginestar is an old farmhouse, now in the centre of Sant Just Desvern, which has been working as a civic centre for years. If the farmhouse is a piece to be preserved and valued, the garden that surrounds it is also a reference for Sant Just and the years accumulated on its vegetation have given its trees a unique value. The library, which could be located in any part of the north garden (and which the urban planning proposed as an isolated piece), would form part of the equipment of this civic centre. This northern part of the garden is much less used than the rest, due to its slope, orientation and poor accessibility, but it is signified by the presence of large trees. The project aims to respect the trees and consequently the topography of the land, so that the façade in the garden is moved forward or backward to establish distances and relationships with the trees. On the contrary, the rear façade uses the boundary with respect to the street as the back of the library and is proposed in continuity with the beautiful and undulating existing wall, which ends with a space open to the natural territory. The library (facing the garden) is treated as a glazed gallery that seeks visual contact in extension with the large trees. The gallery is resolved with light elements that distance themselves from the massive image of the farmhouse and can be understood as its formal counterpoint.1985 - 2001
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Remodelling and Extension of La Bonaigua Sports Complex
Coll-Leclerc Arquitectos, Jaime Coll López, Judith Leclerc
The project deals with the intervention on a sports facilities built in 1976, with a swimming pool added ten years later. The pre-existing set presented serious dysfunctions from a traffic and communications point of view, both internally and with the elements of the environment. The initial project proposed the construction of a multi-sports hall next to the pre-existing facilities, but the final intervention acts on all the elements of the old hall, by means of the addition of new architectural elements or the recovery of other elements that were obsolete from a functional point of view. A new building that acts as a transport interchange is constructed. The intervention takes into account two basic considerations: the relationship of the new sports complex with its immediate environment, and the articulation and coherence of the different functional components that make it up.1997 - 2001
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Yute's Warehouse
Flores & Prats Arquitectes, Ricardo Daniel Flores, Eva Prats i Güerre
The Yute's project is the extension of an existing textile warehouse, located in an industrial area near Barcelona, Sant Just Desvern. It is located next to the Walden 7 housing complex, which has inspired the design process due to its scale, strength and colour. The two young clients had bought an old office building with some warehouse space next to it. After a few years of using it, they needed more warehouse space and thought of expanding it, since the regulations for that plot allowed double the occupancy of the existing building. The main problem with the extension was that it could only be done in height, as the sides were already compromised by fire regulations. The original building didn't have much quality from an architectural point of view, but both the clients and us thought from the beginning that it was better to keep as much as possible of what existed, and grow from what existed, rather than demolish everything and start a new building. The project extends the entirety of the existing building above and wraps it in coloured metallic skins that allude to the coloured fabrics that the company manufactures and sells. The decisive factors when using corrugated steel were lightness and construction time. Later, we thought about its relationship with the textile pieces, the similar dimension of both elements: the sizes of the metal pieces were similar to the length of the textile coils. There is also the fact that both need a support structure, which can be raised like the end of a garment (the awnings on the front façade) which could be turned and show the seams (the west façade through which the customers enter). The effect of this empty construction in the centre is ultimately affected by its perimeter, by its limits, and this follows the same logic as the design of a dress, of a skirt: enveloping a body that is not there, reshaping its edges...1999 - 2005
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2019 - 2023