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Flores & Prats creates a fragment for Sala Beckett with Liquid light at Venice Architecture Biennale
Italy Architecture News - Jun 01, 2018 - 06:40 32778 views
Spanish studio Flores & Prats has installed a fragment from the new Sala Beckett Theatre and Drama Centre in Barcelona, which explains the historicity of the abandoned complex for 30 years.
Presented at the Arsenale in this year's Venice Architecture Biennale, the studio offers an in-depth analysis on the former worker cooperative, with models, photographs, illustrations, a roof hanged from the ceiling.
"A workers cooperative, built in Barcelona in 1924, had been abandoned for about 30 years: rain, wind and pigeons were getting in, gradually destroying the building. The roof had a hole and the sunlight penetrated, a ray of light right at the centre of the old scenery," explained the architects.
Titled Liquid Light, the architects interpret this transformation not only as a menace of destruction, but as an optimistic sign of a new possible future.
"The rehabilitation of the old workers cooperative turned it into the new Sala Beckett Theatre and Drama Centre, a place dedicated to promote new drama stories and to put them on stage for the first time," added the studio.
"Now, a ray of natural light is kept inside the building, changing the atmosphere of its central circulation space throughout the year. Our proposal for Freespace is to bring this ray of natural light inside the show."
"A fragment of Sala Beckett is built in the Arsenale at real scale, a piece that can be inhabited, offering the spatial experience of something far away. The fragment is a replica of the Sala Beckett’s skylight in Barcelona, but the light which makes it work is original, it is Venice’s light."
The studio also presents the Morning Chapel in the garden of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice, which was designed as one of 10 small chapels for the Holy See Pavilion, representing the Vatican City.
The 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale, curated by Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, will be on view from May 26th to November 25th, 2018 in the Giardini and the Arsenale, and around other venues in Venice.
All images © Adrià Goula