Public Space.

 

FAD selected, 1998 -  Decade Mention, 2008

Collab. Juan Ramon Farre arch., Rosanna Vaquero, arch. Nuria Vives

Technical Architect: Leo Sarquella

Promoter: Ajuntament de Barcelona, ​​Gracia District

Construction company: FAUS S.A.

Original photographs: Jordi Raboso, Ignacio Sanfeliu Arboix

Current and model photographs: Francesc Martí photographer

Photographs uses: Pedro Cano

Graphic design: Ana Garay and Gemma Figueras

Model: Victor Argilaga

Budget: 60,000 €, reform in 2000 and partial destruction in 2012

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MEMORY:

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A small space in Gracia neighborhood, surrounded by party walls at the end of Calle Jaén and facing San Antoni crossing which had to be converted into a square; This was achieved by manipulating the vertical surfaces (party walls) and the horizontal surfaces, creating an access to the Center Artesa Tradictionarius (CAT) which shared the southeast party wall with the square.

 

The proposal to dedicate the square to Anne Frank had suggested the idea of an austere space, somewhat harsh, but at the same time serene and delicate.

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The verticality of the party walls, making them exhibit their bare brick and the use of rusty, broken and recycled materials confer a special atmosphere to the small square. Some of the special recycled materials are the electro-welded meshes on the exposed brick bottom, the benches made with enormous IPN profiles, the monolith-stone tablet in steel cut or the horizontal strips of the lower part of the southeast party wall, converted into the access to the CAT.

 

We must remember that the tree pits were made from glass, crushed and recycled, and the gray pavement was made from 40x60cm precast concrete pieces, with corten joints, one of them ends up turning into the monolith. All this created an atmosphere of special emotion and intensity that led to the celebration of the Holocaust day by the Jewish Rabbis and, unfortunately, the constant vandalization of this square.

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The sad memory of the environment of the concentration camps in contrast to the delicate figurative sculpture of the adolescent Anne Frank, a work by Sara Pons originally placed and designed in 2001, sideways on the canopy, rounded off a unique space. The Massana school participated creating a mural in the party wall as an open book -nowadays perished, as well as the access to the CAT-; losing with the new location of the sculpture the good perspective it enjoyed in the past.

 

Materials: Corten steel in tubes and sheet, oxidized mesh, recycled glass, brushed old brick, gray precast cement slabs of 60x40x4, laminated glass, IPN 400 profiles.