Awarded the Pritzker in architecture, the value of this work is undeniable from a formal perspective. However, doubts arise when we consider the functional aspects of thermal and lighting comfort in a Mediterranean climate at 41 degrees latitude.
Here we see a very interesting process of replacing a stick curtain wall with another, whilst keeping the building in use and without a provisional enclosure a few metres from the façade.
In filt3rs we talk about “A unique wrapping”; P. Garrido and J. Prous in “Deep Skin” refer to “Burqas and veilings”. This project by IDOM also adopts the tendency to cover the building with a continuous skin that is more or less abstract and placed over a more functional enclosure.
On this occasion, the interior is glass and the outer skin a perforated metal sheet that reproduces the image of a green landscape.
This is a very stimulating sun protection mechanism.
From the front view, the design seems to be a simple formalism. However, its interest lies in the fact that it grows inwards, like vertical slats. Including these slats in a partially perforated plane with an abstract composition allows the architects to escape from a conventional image.
In this northwest orientation, the system perfectly obstructs solar radiation during the last hours of summer days, without limiting the street view or the entry of light.
A double skin glass façade has indisputable formal possibilities, such as blurring the structural and/or functional order, providing uniformity and vanishing the volume limits so they merge with the sky. However, it contributes little to improving thermal aspects in our climate.
The facade of GAES headquarters in Barcelona is a risky proposal. In filt3rs.net we addressed the behavior of the green filtering elements; here is the time to comment the facade solution as a whole.
Glass façades have always been supported by an industry that can ensure their continuous development and evolution to adapt to new functional and formal requirements. This is unquestionably positive, but also means that the relatively fast obsolescence of façades results in the need to replace them quite frequently.
In the Beethoven Building in Barcelona, the replacement of the façade clearly renews the image of the building while maintaining the idea of a continuous glass enclosure and the original cutting. The renewed image is created by the materials, the characteristics of both glass and profiles and, above all, the strong rhythm conferred by the mullion covers and the couples of exempt profiles projecting outwards.
The extension of the University of Barcelona’s Faculty of Law was a risky intervention: the erection of 16,000 m2 next to a jewel of rationalist architecture of a smaller size, at about 12,000 m2, being the plot of the new construction considerably smaller than that of the historic building.
We do not want to evaluate the architectural intervention, but simply mention that resorting to neutrality is perfectly understandable.
The unfinished Plaça d’Europa project arises from a contradiction. The objective was to provide the city of Barcelona with a more representative entrance from the airport, with towers that appear to be of tertiary use. And we say “appear to be” because many of these towers were in fact designed for residential use. This contradiction justifies the façade solution adopted in the towers.