MODEL. ENTRE MATÈRIES

To meet the objectives of the Paris Agreement for decarbonization and energy transition, cities must rethink their relationship with materials, optimizing each process to obtain the greatest possible amount of use and value from each element, reducing its footprint and preserving the life of everything useful.

Within this framework, the commission carried out by MODEL. Barcelona Architectures Festival under the topic In between matter, focuses its reflection around the flows and exchanges of matter needed to guarantee the functioning of the city as a complex entity of intertwined systems, exploring, therefore, all the potential of upcycling, that is, of the logics of circularity and reuse.

We chose the site of the old Barcelona Courts of Justice, where the remains of its demolition are still visible, as the place to display the Chronotopic Memory device. It is about the recreation and juxtaposition of the architectures and materials that disappeared between the 7th century and the year 2017 in this site: the Medieval Necropolis (7th century – 2017), the Gardens of la Fusina (16th century – 1714), the Palace of Fine Arts (1888 – 1944) and the Courthouse building (1966 – 2017).

The Palace of Fine Arts once held a famous double electric organ, the most important in Europe at the time. The intervention recreated the original position of the organs with which a concert was celebrated by the organist Juan de la Rubia on the closing day of the intervention.

Architects Flexo Arquitectura
Client MODEL. Barcelona Architectures Festival
Surface 5.471 m²
Situation Barcelona
Year 2022