The palace at 4 a.m.
We constructed a fantastical palace in the night – a very fragile palace of matches. At the least false movement, a whole section would collapse. We always began it again.
Giacometti’s description of his work Le palais à 4 heures du matin portrays a fragile, ever-changing architecture. The sculpture itself looks extremely delicate: made up of slender beams, the building almost disappears in order to display its surreal content, which is none other than the experience of its occupants.
Alberto Giacometti, Le palais à 4 heures du matin, 1932
Initially in this project, our concern was choosing which approach to follow. The semantic poverty of this façade – as well as of the others being renovated – prompted us to seek a generalisation, a methodology that can be tested and replicated on similar cases.
Typical floor plan with proposed intervention.
However, this ideological stance soon clashes with reality, namely that the very anonymity of this elevation – which is actually a section –, its lack of formal structure due to being a by-product of urban planning, prevents us from establishing a dialogue on a consolidated basis. The paradigmatic project has to give way to a pragmatic project, and to address this structure as if it were not architecture but a construction site or a ruin, that is, to accept its ambiguity.
Existing façade on carrer de Lluçà, Barcelona, 2024.
We chose to operate by layering, without erasing what already exists but adding new material in a clearly recognisable, discernible and reversible way. In a single concise gesture, a new cantilevered loggia addresses all functional and technical issues: shading, new balconies, redefining the relationship between the façade and the lightwell.
24.12
Renovation of a blind wall
Single-stage open competition
Location: carrer de Lluçà, Barcelona, Spain
Year: 2024
Façade area: 500 m²
Construction cost: 325,000 €
Status: unbuilt
Client: Ajuntament de Barcelona, Fundació Mies van der Rohe
Design, visualisation, text: Valerio Poltrini