Balcón del Guadalquivir Park
Córdoba ES
Juan Navarro Baldeweg
2004
Type
Public Space
Tags
public spaces, for pedestrians, in danger of extinction, Guadalquivir riverside, Spain ccc
Visitability
Allowed
Description
The projects for the renovation of the Molino de Martos (Martos Mill) and the Balcón del Guadalquivir (Guadalquivir Balcony) in Córdoba constitute a major urban intervention in the city with a powerful effect on it as a whole. As a result, a large park space will be created on the riverbank and a small hydraulic museum will be built, which will centre the public space and serve as a link between the city and the park.The balcony is at the same time a place which, due to the bend in the course of the river, allows visitors to enjoy the view of the skyline of the old city in which the built-up mass of the mosque-cathedral is centred. The mill helps us to understand the link between the city and the territory, the built environment and the natural environment, the experience of which is provided by the wide riverbed.Formally, the park follows the guidelines of three sections that extend from the Ermita de los Mártires (Martyrs’ Hermitage) and the Martos Mill to the stadium and the Arenal Bridge. The first section is centred on the hermitage, and the second section serves to organise entrances by means of three connected pools that descend towards the river and bring the experience of the proximity of water to the upper part of the avenue. Between these sheets of water there are bridges over the inclined planes through which the water flows from one pool to another. The third section opens out into a large green wooded area, directing the paths to the various contact points.The renovation of the mill includes the recovery of the spaces which housed the hydraulic machinery in the large vaulted hall, with a careful restoration of its original architecture. Above the vaulted hall area is an exhibition room for the new museum – a panoramic room from which visitors can enjoy views of the river and the city. The architecture of the mill is thus finished off with a piece made from lightweight aluminium elements which, on the base of the main volume of the mill, creates a space in which reticular and radial geometry merge and in which an enclosure is organised to provide a sequential and fragmentary view in a 180-degree arc over the river and the city. This space, like an optical wheel, is articulated and linked by two vertical axes in the glass prisms that guide the zenithal light over the vaulted hall on the ground floor. The mill and its new viewpoint show in a real and metaphorical way the original integration of the mill and the territory, the new park and the old city. ( Description provided by the architects )