THE HOUSE OF TOMORROW

particular
Avda. Paluzie, Eixample Malagrida | Olot (Girona)
O-2022-03
reform of a family house

 

1921. Eixample Malagrida of Olot. At the height of the construction boom of bourgeois summer houses in the neighbourhood, the architect Isidre Bosch designed this house for the “American” Gratacós. He aimed to give it the appearance of an isolated mansion, even though its position at the front of a row of houses sets the real tone for the project and organises the structure in parallel with the neighbouring buildings. The internal organisation of the square floor plan is coherent with this condition: all the pieces rotate around the central staircase on three sides in the same way as its six-sided roof. Six-sided.

A hundred years after the construction of the house and more than twenty years after its abandonment, this renovation endeavours to recover its functionality, solidity and, above all, its noucentista domestic essence; the restoration of many elements, together with the reconstruction, repositioning and addition of some others, are the mechanisms used by the project to bring it back to life and to give it homeliness. And, as in the 1920s, the project does so by appreciating the values of the Catalan masia, admiring the old trades, making a pact with nature and, in short, putting itself in the shoes of Noucentisme, which only a short time ago was yesterday and now it is already tomorrow.

THE HOUSE OF TOMORROW

particular
Avda. Paluzie, Eixample Malagrida | Olot (Girona)
O-2022-03
reform of a family house

 

1921. Eixample Malagrida of Olot. At the height of the construction boom of bourgeois summer houses in the neighbourhood, the architect Isidre Bosch designed this house for the “American” Gratacós. He aimed to give it the appearance of an isolated mansion, even though its position at the front of a row of houses sets the real tone for the project and organises the structure in parallel with the neighbouring buildings. The internal organisation of the square floor plan is coherent with this condition: all the pieces rotate around the central staircase on three sides in the same way as its six-sided roof. Six-sided.

A hundred years after the construction of the house and more than twenty years after its abandonment, this renovation endeavours to recover its functionality, solidity and, above all, its noucentista domestic essence; the restoration of many elements, together with the reconstruction, repositioning and addition of some others, are the mechanisms used by the project to bring it back to life and to give it homeliness. And, as in the 1920s, the project does so by appreciating the values of the Catalan masia, admiring the old trades, making a pact with nature and, in short, putting itself in the shoes of Noucentisme, which only a short time ago was yesterday and now it is already tomorrow.