WATER TANK REI MARTÍ

Spain Pavilion Biennale de Venice 2016 (Golden Lion) | Best Projet Award 2017 | Selected Catalunya Construcció Award 2018

In the former property where Antoni Gaudí 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.

The access by the Bellesguard street opens on a levelled 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.