City Hall & Com.Centre in San Fernando de H.

Description

This project stands in the old Royal Cloth Factory in San Fernando Henares, dating from 1746 and attributed to the architect Pedro de Ribera, as part of the baroque planning of the city center. The old factory faces toward the main plaza, square and surrounded by a compact group of houses. At the moment the project was done, only the heavily-degraded central body and part of the north and south wings of what used to be the main facade remained standing, as a single and exempt plane in limestone, surrounded by industrial units.The project has a double initial intention: to revitalize a degraded urban area in the city center and to preserve and consolidate the existing ruins of the historical facade, incorporating it to the new building. This way, the project is conceived as a prismatic volume of 116x16x12 m that takes up the trace of the main section of the old facade and creates a new urban square that completes the trace of the old factory. This way, the new building acts as a hinge between two squares: the historical plaza, that retains its initial nature, facing the historical facade, and the new plaza, facing the new building’s facade.Towards the north, the baroque facade is completed with a new neutral wall in which the historical remains are inserted, maintained as an exempt element both inside and outside. The compact volume attached to the wall, liberates a vertical space that uses the whole height of the building, along its length several spatial events take place.The building is treated as a compact and monolithic volume, pierced by voids created by spatial projections. The main focus is put on the use, control, definition and perception of the spaces, in the tone of these operations, throughout spaces of different scales. An 8x8x8 m void in stone, onyx, but translucent pierces the total volume and creates a series of situations related to the main room and the circulations in the Town Hall, and of the spaces that this operations entail.(Description provided by the architects)