May
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Filmoteca de Catalunya from Josep Lluis Mateo on Vimeo.
Video: Tiago Camara
Under construction: “Filmoteca de Catalunya”
First Prize. Restricted competition.
2004-2010 – Barcelona
PROCESS
My initial interest was in understanding the brief and the place. We built a model with fragments of what was to go inside, with no specific attempt to give form or unity. We arranged this conglomerate at a tangent to one of the sides of the site, constructing a street and freeing up a plaza in front of it.
RESTRICTED COMPETITION. AUTUMN 2004
The next phase obviously required precision. The cinemas, a very important part of the project, were put in the basement to reduce the volumetric impact of the building.
The context then became stronger: the plaza became the entire ground floor, and the material for its construction had to be concrete, uniting structure and finish in a continuous mass which, to me, seemed to establish a relation with the shabby, dilapidated masses of its neighbours.
I was particularly interested in the volumetric expressivity of the short sides of the parallelepiped, and its potential to define the corners of the existing streets.
EXECUTIVE PROJECT. 2005
With our structural engineers we developed the previously defined concept, seeking to leave all the installations on show with no false ceilings. We also sought to make everything tectonic and slightly primitive. This involved continuing the previous arguments.
CONSTRUCTION. 2007-2010
The construction process is extremely complex, having started with a long archaeological dig and continuing with all the excavation and work involved in undergrounding the cinemas, a difficult task because the site is set in a former medieval lagoon.
A building is always the expression of intelligence and a sustained will, brought to bear on a specific place. We cannot abandon the project to its fate. We have to accompany it until the idea, converted into matter and space, starts living its life. Then, we disappear; the building no longer belongs to us.
Josep Lluís Mateo, 2009
Site: El Raval, Barcelona
Surface: 7.000 m2
Client: ICIC (Institut Català de les Indústries Culturals)
External colaborators:
Structural Engineering: OMA, Agustí Obiol
Installations Engineering: Grupo JG
Budget: Aumedes-Embuena – Xavier Aumedes
Fire Protection: Francesc Labastida
