Garcimuñoz Castle Renovation Project
200best ES
Izaskun Chinchilla
2013
Type
Cultural
Tags
renovations, heritage sites interventions, made by women, traces from the past, 200Best
Visitability
Allowed
Description
The Refurbishment of the Garcimuñoz Castle (Cuenca, Spain) is a project that consolidates a complex existing group of ruins coming from Arab, Medieval and Neoclassicism times (centuries X to XVIII). It also incorporates new architecture with a innovative use consisting on a Media Library. Most research and innovation efforts are focus on achieving a sustainable maintenance of the building in terms of energy, cultural activity within the region, social engagement and finance.The combination of different uses, different periods of construction, partial demolishment, digging up of old non visible stratus and a poor state of conservation makes quite hard for visitors to interpret the actual ruins. The new architecture is light, seeks to distinguish itself from the pre-existing edifice and is not so much a building as an ensemble of footbridges, platforms, stairs and rails. The location of its elements tries to separate different periods of History and to isolate the vision of the architectures that were never thought to be seen together.As we have already mentioned, the Castle has had many different uses. As our laws force to the preservation of heritage ‘forever’, we could presume different future uses for buildings are still to come. The new architecture is, for this reason, understood as a temporary occupation. All technical details have been designed so that the building is fully collapsible. This fact is one of the clues to consider the new architecture fully different from the old one but respectful and sensible with its future conservation and use. The combination of few resources and the fluctuating flow of users have actively conditioned all decisions. For that reason, the energy consuming area of the intervention has been minimized. The Media Library program has been organized with plenty of outdoor areas so that when weather is mild and public visits are the greatest extensive spaces are available.During centuries in all the summer months, all of the inhabitants of Mediterranean regions have enjoyed the outdoor life, particularly after dark, the project tries to maintain and even recover these traditions. The introduction of the outdoor cinema, to be used principally in summer nights, looks also to preserve a culture of meeting and to provide with public activities the first hours of the nights. Typical activities of these hours have been conversation, storytelling, trips narration that can be considered the precedent of cinema and important landmarks of Mediterranean cultural production. At the moment there is no Castle both in Spain and in Europe that has been refurbished introducing digital technologies as an important part of program. The opinion of the Spanish Minister of Public Work is that this project offers a test on how innovative uses of digital technologies can give new opportunities to isolated Castles. We hope that the uniqueness of the program, of the geometries, of the new architecture is the seed for a bigger strategy on how to keep the heritage of the past in a sustainable way while creating a heritage for the future joining old and present times. The major element of the new intervention, the platform covering the Moorish citadel and enabling the use of the old Weapon courtyard has been fully designed taking bioclimatism into consideration. The platform is composed by two layers, being the upper one made out of steel grid and the lower one of glass. The glass cover produces an increase of the temperature during the winter. This spontaneous increment of the temperature is crucial to avoid damage in the archaeology caused by minus cero temperatures. During the summer forty five solar chimneys will ensure abundant ventilation. The solar chimneys are glass volumes of 3.45m high placed over the cover. They are not only solar chimneys but display cabinets to exhibit objects on the upper level. The top piece of the chimneys is a small skylight that can be opened. During summer, the sun heats the air in the chimney and makes it flows up extracting the air from the lower level. (Description provided by Izaskun Chinchilla Architects)