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Architects: Flores & Prats
- Year: 2023
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Photographs:Adrià Goula, Davide Dentini, Eva Prats
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Lead Architects: Ricardo Flores, Eva Prats
Text description provided by the architects. The installation "Emotional Heritage" is structured around four themes that explore the subject, and presents six projects by the Catalan architectural duo. The themes serve as a guide for visitors to navigate through the graphic material displayed on tables and containers. The four themes are:
1. Drawing with time. According to Flores & Prats, the advantage of working with existing buildings is that it allows architects to observe and learn from what has already been created. They record everything they observe and incorporate the temporal dimension of the building into their design. By drawing the existing building, they make it their own and express the different generations that built it. The project selected by the architects to exemplify this theme is the Mills Museum in Palma de Mallorca (completed in 2002). Here, they focused on enhancing the existing qualities and geometries, amplifying them through excavation and the introduction of natural light, to the point of multiplying their influence throughout the space.
2. The value of use. The concept of heritage is not based on monetary value or grandeur but on time and collective experience. This is evident in ordinary architecture, where layers of history are present in every detail, waiting to be remembered. Even seemingly insignificant elements of abandoned buildings, such as doors and windows, have value for their use. Drawing and cataloging these elements is a way of understanding and appreciating the culture of buildings. The two projects presented here are the Yutes Warehouse in Barcelona (completed in 2005), which introduced them to the discipline of reuse, and the Beckett Room, also in Barcelona (completed in 2017), rehabilitated by restoring both its physical and social heritage.
3. The open condition of ruins. The architects describe the experience of being inside a ruin and how it presents itself as a patient and silent witness to the passage of time. The ruin is a palimpsest, where different eras come together, creating a timeless character that invites interpretation by offering a connection between one's own memories and the memories of the place. Here, the project of the Cultural Laboratory Variétés in Brussels (in progress) is presented, developed together with Ouest Architecture to give new life to a theater from the thirties.
4. The right to inherit. Each generation has the right to adapt the legacy of the past to current conditions, but it must be done with critical reflection and respecting the material and emotional history of what is inherited. It is necessary to understand and incorporate what was there before, leading to a balance in which design actions are not completely new, but rather an evolution of what existed before.
Two projects are presented here. For the Casal Balaguer Cultural Center in Mallorca, developed with Duch-Pizà Arquitectes and completed in 2016, the architects transformed an aristocratic house dating from the 14th century, renovated in the 16th century and expanded in the 18th century, from a private family residence to a public building accessible to the entire city. The Favorita Fab Lab in Barcelona (in progress), which reuses an abandoned industrial complex, takes into account external conditions beyond the building itself as a heritage to be preserved. This includes the trees that grow along its facade and the vast sky that surrounds the site.
Flores & Prats have interpreted their exhibition space as an open and collaborative workshop, integrated with their neighboring facilities. The studio exhibits various materials, usually used in their research and project development, on tables or standalone satellites, creating an atmosphere of material flow beyond the tables, and encouraging interaction from visitors.
Sketches and models are displayed on the tables as an introduction to the six projects that showcase Flores & Prats' "Emotional Heritage" approach. These projects are presented as open and unfinished documents, inviting visitors to participate in the research and design process.
These trunks serve as an archive for the models once the project is finished and allow us to delve deeper into the various topics that arise. The exhibition also includes films and animations, which provide a critical lens through which to view the creative process and explore the stories and situations that shape the final product.
