Central del Circ. Circus Creation Center in Barcelona

Memory of project by xxm_arquitectura

1.Transformation of residual spaces.

The project borns with the need of looking for better spaces to develop the sector. The Circus Creation Center is located inside a semi-buried industrial unit. which for more than eight years have been invisible and dark, waiting after the Fórum 2004 to be transformed.

It has a decided future: shipyard, bud the social need had another plan: taking the place out of the invisibility, colouring its facades, trasnforming the old warehouse in a circus creation center, introducing energetic changes, light, art, life, future... The result is a 3800 m² center, including creation, training and divulgation rooms for circus, which allow new companies to put the center as an european spot.

2. Concepto de página en blanco.

The project has searched in materials for the best efficiency, with an economic project, sustainable and logic, which reminds to the circus universe and its transforming and flexible capacity. Concentration, silence and neutrality of spaces, and privacy, are the initial lines of the project designing.

3. Imagen interior. Serenidad y concentración.

The need of controlled natural light, and the privacy need were solved with the main project material: translucent policarbonate panels which blur light and at the same time limit views through circulation areas: the result is a huge policarbonate box inside the warehouse. In a metaphoric way, this box is also a reminder of white circus tents which artists use for training in ephemeral installations.

The success of the project depended on creating a mimetic space with traditional tents, an so, the white box has succeeded in generating a welcoming space for artists, with romantic connections with their past, and realizing that new materials and new spaces can generate better conditions for work and confort.

4. Imagen exterior. Circo como espectáculo.

On the other side, both architects and artists had the need to offer a colouring image to the outside, which gave life and colour to the greyish Fórum Park, as a way to inform of the new acticity which starts to live permanently in the Park. Inside the center, there are only concentration, rigour, discipline and silence, but outisde the center shows what it actually is, reminding that the circus is nothing but performance.

Text.- xxm arquitectura.