Barcelona, city of landscapes.
Barcelona and particularly its areas, congested by millions of tourists, are composed of a series of sceneries that continuously change. The city itself finds its identity in the ability to attract and to welcome different cultures. Barcelona is the European birthplace of multiplicity, variety and struggle for ideas and believes.
Our challenge has been to have a direct confrontation with many types of scenery that interlace in this area of the Port of Barcelona. On the one side, we find the chaotic Barcelona that crosses the waterfront in a very rapid and confused way. On the other side, we find a copious flow of tourists that walk slowly through the seafront to reach the leisure centre ‘maremagnum’. On another side, there are the tireless photographers who visit the city to photograph the most important monuments. Finally there is a group of romantic travellers who arrive in this part of the city by boat or ferryboat from Europe. And how can we omit the nostalgic ones who rest still near the sea-shore, the itinerant jugglers who find a stage at the dock?
How could a building succeed in containing this coming and going, inside a scenery that continuously change?
No way our pavilion could have been an architectural object, a sterile container able only to contain different objects from time to time. It should have been something capable of capture and receive all these streams of people, thoughts and moods.
What thing could help us on achieving this aim?
Landscape.
We opted not to focus our project on an architectonic object. We decided to take on this challenge with the creation of a new landscape. Because landscape is capable to welcome and arouse the flows of people (and with them, their ideas, their impressions, their culture).
With an operation of imposition, we decided to juxtapose a completely different artificial landscape to the existing urban landscape. We noticed that the existing area is characterized by a prevalent dimension, the horizontal one, with a waterfront that is all at the same level and with a rough finishing that is appropriate for constant, frequent and recurring flows. In opposition to this, we imagined a new landscape full of differences in height and a rise and fall that could introduce the vertical dimension against the flatness of the existing waterfront. Moreover, we choose a grassy finish where people could find refreshment and comfort and where they could stop, in juxtaposition to the continuous coming and going on the dock.
Once we have selected the type of landscape, based on these characteristics, it has been cut with a perfect squared shape that, in an ironic way, reminds us to the rigid geometry that governed the development of the whole city of Barcelona.
Then, we decided to juxtapose our landscape to the existing one and to create a connection between these two landscapes, so that one may directly contaminate the other and vice versa. In effect, it is possible to climb on the grassy roofing straight from the level of the dock.
Therefore, on the one hand, this landscape offers new perspectives of the sceneries of the city and on the other hand, it contains/hold a fluid space, designed to better meet the multiplicity of the sceneries that a cultural event could offers in a city like Barcelona.
On one side, with a very functional logic, we collected all the spaces for services (info-point, coffee bar and toilets) inside three separate blocks, placed at the edges of the building. We planned an info-point, equipped with private services, that is open on the side where ferryboats land; we designed a coffee-bar and restaurant dimensioned in order to serve full meals in addition to snacks; finally we planned public toilets that are open on the less frequented side of the pavilion. These blocks define the permeable perimeter of the area for events. All these services work as a filter between the external space and the essence of the pavilion and define in a smooth way the area for events. In this way, we did not create an isolated area only reserved for an event like inside a museum, but we created the opportunity that the event contaminates the external space (and could be contaminated by it).
On the other side, the core of the pavilion is empty. There is only a white membrane, soft, smooth and plastic, collocated over the head of the visitors like it was a provisional shelter.
In fact, the real engine of the pavilion won’t be an architectural object. Events inside the pavilion will be the true beating hearth of it. Concerts, shows, happenings, flash mobs do not need large and complicated structures. So the inner space won’t have partitions and, time by time, it could be organized with temporary walls and panels as to create the better structure for the planned event. This is a really elementary model space that takes as model the large open spaces like arenas or stadiums, characterized by wide clear surfaces that could be transformed each time in relation to a specific event.
Main space remains the green roofing. Outside, the grassy covering is directly connected with the dock and it is possible to access directly to it without going inside the pavilion. In particular, also the roof has been imagined as a place for events. First of all, this is a comfortable place, apt to take a break and not to be passed through in passing. This is a strong discontinuity, able to disturb flows, inserting a pretext for a break in the middle of the flows that pass through the area. In itself, it’s a place where something could happen. Functionally it could be used in different ways. It could be used as terrace from where you can enjoy a show (the natural show of the sea or a performance or event); it also could become itself the stage where artists could attract people in the square.
Therefore, this project becomes a design operation in the waterfront. The logic of this area is overwritten; this ordinary dock turns in a real waterfront, able to attract people and to give comfort to them. So, we obtained a growth of ground and landscape.
The relationship with the existing surrounding is created by the insertion of the pavilion in the surrounding as a new point of view of the context itself. Rather than an integration, this is a reinterpretation of the existing landscape. Indeed, you have only to walk on the pavilion to obtain new perspectives of the near areas. The pavilion offers a favoured point of view of the monuments, a sight of the sea and of the harbour at a different height not as usual.
In the end, our idea could be used to requalify the whole waterfront. How? Creating many different landscapes and putting close one to another. Multiple landscape for multiple-city.