9 flats renovation in the Gothic Quarter of Barcelona

Nobody knows better than Benedetta reflect the passage of time renovating buildings, making places to live full of personality.

Flats Renovation in Barcelona by EMBT. Photography © Marcela Grassi

Memory of the project

A repair made with grace.9 flats in the Gothic Quarter of Barcelona.

In a residential building, located in the Gothic Quarter of Barcelona, the installation of an elevator allows easy renewal of existing floors. Cleaning the floors is accompanied with attention to what is found.

Scratching the walls are overlapping colors of the decoration of the many generations who passed through here. Recover those colors and ceramic tiles floors, wooden beams and reintegrating them into the newrehabilitation.

The new floors are open to the natural light, and its new distribution transforms existing only modestly accepting the wide variety in the form of flats.Almost all the partitions are deleted or replaced by translucent walls of pine and polycarbonate, seeking to illuminate every room of the house.

It's an act of cleaning and repair extremely simple integrating new elements, executed with minimum price and decisions almost on site...

The different floors personality reemerges enhanced by the new life brought by the new tenants, with their furniture, their pets and their personal stories...

Text.- Benedetta Tagliabue, 21 June 2013.

CREDITS.-

Main architect.- Benedetta Tagliabue, Miralles Tagliabue EMBT.
Colaborators.- Mattia Capelletti, Valentina Antinucci, Carolina Brembilla, Lorenzo Trucato, Marta Ruiz Nieto, Santi Nuez.
Date.- 2012.
Surface.- 1.872m².
Site.- Barcelona, Spain.
Budget.- 700 Euros/m².

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Main floor, Flats Renovation in Barcelona by EMBT.

Ground floor, Flats Renovation in Barcelona by EMBT.

First floor, Flats Renovation in Barcelona by EMBT.

Second floor, Flats Renovation in Barcelona by EMBT.

Third floor, Flats Renovation in Barcelona by EMBT.

Cover, Flats Renovation in Barcelona by EMBT.

Section,Flats Renovation in Barcelona by EMBT.

Elevation, Flats Renovation in Barcelona by EMBT.

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Benedetta Tagliabue

Benedetta Tagliabue was born in Milan and graduated from the University of Venice in 1989. In 1991 she joined Enric Miralles’ studio where she eventually became a partner. Her work with Miralles, whom she married, includes a number of high profile buildings and projects in Barcelona: Parque Diagonal Mar (1997-2002), Head Office Gas Natural (1999-2006) and the Market and quarter Santa Caterina (1996-2005), as well as projects across Europe, including the School of Music in Hamburg (1997-2000) and the City Hall in Utrecht (1996-2000).

In 1998, the partnership won the competition to design the new Scottish Parliament building and despite Miralles’ premature death in 2000, Tagliabue took leadership of the team as joint Project Director and the Parliament was successfully completed in 2004, winning several awards.

She won the competition for the new design of Hafencity Harbor in Hamburg , Germany, for a subway train station in Naples and for the Spanish Pavilion for Expo Shanghai 2010 among others.

Today under the direction of Benedetta Tagliabue the Miralles-Tagliabue-EMBT studio works with architectural projects, open spaces, urbanism, rehabilitation and exhibitions, trying to conserve the spirit of the Spanish and Italian artisan architectural studio tradition which espouses collaboration rather than specialization.

Their architectural philosophy is dedicating special attention to context.

Benedetta has written for several architectural magazines and has taught at, amongst other places, the University of architecture ETSAB in Barcelona. She has lectured in many international architectural Forums as, for example, the RIBA, the Architectural Association and Bartlett School in, London, the Berlage Institut in Amsterdam, and in USA, China and South America.