Description of project by Flores & Prats
A worker cooperative, built in Barcelona in 1924, had been abandoned for some 30 years: rain, wind and pigeons were entering, gradually destroying the building. The roof had a hole and the sunlight penetrated, a ray of light right in the center of the old stage. We saw this not as a threat of destruction, but as an optimistic signal of a new possible future.
The rehabilitation of the former workers' cooperative became the new Sala Beckett Theater and Dramaturgy Center, a place dedicated to promoting new theatrical stories and staging them for the first time. Now, a beam of natural light remains inside the building, changing the atmosphere of its central circulation space throughout the year.
Our proposal for Freespace is to bring this natural light beam into the sample. A fragment of Sala Beckett built in the Arsenale on a real scale, a piece that can be inhabited, offering the spatial experience of something very far away. The fragment is a replica of the skylight of the Sala Beckett in Barcelona, but the light that makes it work is original, it is the light of Venice.
Flores & Prats is an architecture studio based in Barcelona. Established in 1998 by Eva Prats and Ricardo Flores, it is dedicated to confronting theory and academic practice with design and construction activity. The studio has been involved in several kinds of projects, especially for Public Administration through open competitions. These include residential and public buildings as well as public spaces, and also exhibition design and site-specific installations for major cultural institutions and museums such as Tàpies Foundation, Miró Foundation, and Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona. www.floresprats.com
