Renewal of the Palau-Castell Renaissance Cloister in Betxí
ASCER 2014 AWARD in the category of INTERIOR DESIGN
The starting point for the urban regeneration of the Palau-Castell de Betxí, was the attack against the Valencian heritage suffered in the decade of the 70’s. Half of the Renaissance cloister was lost, when it was invaded by two residential building blocks.
The revitalisation of the monument (protected with the top national rank, BIC) was claimed by several bodies of the Valencian Society, and supported by the city council of Betxí, during 20 years of abandonment.
The proposal is about the first of the 8 phases of the Master Plan of the monument, ended in July 2014, where the dividing preexisting wall is used as a support for a mirror that reflected the lost part of the Renaissance cloister. It evokes the past plenitude of the Palau-Castell and restores a forgotten urban space, that recovers the socio-cultural importance it had once.
The Palau-Castell Urban Regeneration has been awarded with the Ceramic Architecture Award ASCER 2014 recognizing the urban regeneration and the heritage protection of this architecture intervention using a mirror and traditional ceramics pavement.
