Text description provided by the architects. In the former property where Antoni Gaudi built the Bellesguard Tower, there was recently discovered a big water tank, buried under a pine forest, from the end of the 19th century. The project consists in preserving it in order to create an open space to the public, maintaining the magic of this underground water tank and the architectural rhythm created by the Catalan vaults and arcs every 3.5m.

Rooftop Plan

Longitudinal Section

The access by the Bellesguard street opens on a leveled public square which gets narrower towards the entrance of the water tank space. This new square restores in the district a new public identity. Connections and visual relations with the Bellesguard Tower are created through the materiality of the big concrete walls which become integrated organoleptically with the pine forest which over it.

This new square, participatory private space, which has the function to serve as entrance hall for the reservoir, works as an urban activator with the incorporation in the program of a bar which makes the articulation between the main entrance and the public garden. Inside the water tank space, the floor and walls are dressed in wooden fabrics, vaults and arcs restored, emphasizing a space with unique morphology and in atypical acoustics. This allows the city the opportunity to enjoy a different cultural experience.

© Adria Goula

• Architects

  ARCHIKUBIK

• Location

  Carrer de Bellesguard, 14, 08022 Barcelona, Spain

• Category

  Adaptive Reuse

• Author Architects

  Carmen Santana, Marc Chalamanch, Miquel Lacasta

• Area

  966.05 m2

• Project Year

  2015

• Photographs

  Adria Goula, Simo?n Garci?a