Art Gallery in Barcelona

The intervention aims to transform a pre-existing space into an exhibition gallery on c/Trafalgar in Barcelona, understanding the space as a place of memory, where all the elements (continent and exhibition content) act as reversible and mutable overlays in time.

The project is conceived as an open transformation process over time, the first phase radically questions the format of the white cube, and invites to reflect on what a contemporary exhibition space should look like. The proposal, therefore, seeks to create a specific site – away from a generic white envelope – including traces and memory of the site, avoiding treating the existing in a precious way.

Responding to this idea of exhibition space as a place of narrative in permanent transformation, it has been chosen that the materiality and literality of the technical and normative solutions, is presented in a direct and explicit way, thus making visible and meaningful the processes of the architectural project. The expressiveness of the space and its identity is presented as a response to existing regulations and the necessary construction processes.

All the elements follow this logic and in turn of reversibility, appearing in its constructive nudity. Fire protection is materialized in the construction of coatings with gypsum panels intended for this purpose, leaving its own materiality. This keeps the existing columns intact, protected and encapsulated over time. The lighting system also introduces its own formal logic by distancing itself from the existing guidelines, the rest of the elements appear as ready-made in dialogue with the existing one waiting for new traces and uses of the ‘space overlap like a palimpsest.

MAIO