Courtesy of María Isabel Bennasar Félix

Architect: María Isabel Bennasar Félix
Location: Barcelona, Spain
Client: Consorcid’Educació de Barcelona, PlaçaUrquinaona 6, 08010 Barcelona, tel. 935511000
Area: 1,080 sqm
Budget: 2,791,094 euros
Collaborators: Nursery School In Barcelona / Maria Isabel Bennasar Felix CorinaDindareanu.
Completion: 2011
Construction company: Construccions DECO S.A.
Photographs: Courtesy of María Isabel Bennasar Félix

Courtesy of María Isabel Bennasar Félix

M. Isabel Bennasar Félix, architect

The site is located in the block defined by the streets Àlaba, Doctor Trueta, Pamplona and Ramon Turro, in the city of Barcelona. An equipment area is created on the western side of the block, following the existent location of the high school and completing it with the new center, reserving space for future green area to the east.

elevations

This is a nursery of 9 groups in a building developed on the ground floor. The building is situated on the northern corner of the site, aligned with the street facade Ramon Turro and the north chamfer, continuing the line of closure of the institute, with an open facade to the yard, to east and south, where the classrooms are located. The volume is defined to the north by the kitchen, teachers’ dining room, administration, archive, and adapted toilet and the stroller storage, giving a facade to the chamfer and defining on one side the access and on the other side an inner courtyard to ventilate the kitchen and other services.

plan

The nine classes are organized into two groups: a group of four classrooms for children 2 / 3 years old that defines the eastern façade and the five remaining classrooms for infants and for children 1 / 2 years old, defining the southern facade. The access to the courtyard is situated between these two volumes of classrooms.
All classrooms have facade and direct access to the courtyard. The classrooms have two height levels, a higher one in contact with the facade and a lower one, where inner access is situated, as well as the water areas and bedrooms.

sections

The multipurpose hall is situated as a central element, the highest volume that organizes the whole distribution scheme, with direct access to the classrooms of the 2 / 3 years old. The hall is connected to all areas of the center, and receives daylight through high windows, situated above the other volumes. The classrooms for infants and the 1 / 2 years old is given access through a space defined by a volume of services that opens to the inner courtyard facade, where the workshop, storage, laundry, changing rooms are located, as well as the teachers’ room, also opened to the central space.
Developing the volume of the school at different heights allows the natural lighting of all areas through high windows: this improves the natural lighting inside the classrooms and makes it possible also for inner areas such as the circulation spaces and the multipurpose central hall.

Courtesy of María Isabel Bennasar Félix

Architect: María Isabel Bennasar Félix
Location: Barcelona, Spain
Client: Consorcid’Educació de Barcelona, PlaçaUrquinaona 6, 08010 Barcelona, tel. 935511000
Area: 1,080 sqm
Budget: 2,791,094 euros
Collaborators: Nursery School In Barcelona / Maria Isabel Bennasar Felix CorinaDindareanu.
Completion: 2011
Construction company: Construccions DECO S.A.
Photographs: Courtesy of María Isabel Bennasar Félix

Courtesy of María Isabel Bennasar Félix

M. Isabel Bennasar Félix, architect

The site is located in the block defined by the streets Àlaba, Doctor Trueta, Pamplona and Ramon Turro, in the city of Barcelona. An equipment area is created on the western side of the block, following the existent location of the high school and completing it with the new center, reserving space for future green area to the east.

elevations

This is a nursery of 9 groups in a building developed on the ground floor. The building is situated on the northern corner of the site, aligned with the street facade Ramon Turro and the north chamfer, continuing the line of closure of the institute, with an open facade to the yard, to east and south, where the classrooms are located. The volume is defined to the north by the kitchen, teachers’ dining room, administration, archive, and adapted toilet and the stroller storage, giving a facade to the chamfer and defining on one side the access and on the other side an inner courtyard to ventilate the kitchen and other services.

plan

The nine classes are organized into two groups: a group of four classrooms for children 2 / 3 years old that defines the eastern façade and the five remaining classrooms for infants and for children 1 / 2 years old, defining the southern facade. The access to the courtyard is situated between these two volumes of classrooms.
All classrooms have facade and direct access to the courtyard. The classrooms have two height levels, a higher one in contact with the facade and a lower one, where inner access is situated, as well as the water areas and bedrooms.

sections

The multipurpose hall is situated as a central element, the highest volume that organizes the whole distribution scheme, with direct access to the classrooms of the 2 / 3 years old. The hall is connected to all areas of the center, and receives daylight through high windows, situated above the other volumes. The classrooms for infants and the 1 / 2 years old is given access through a space defined by a volume of services that opens to the inner courtyard facade, where the workshop, storage, laundry, changing rooms are located, as well as the teachers’ room, also opened to the central space.
Developing the volume of the school at different heights allows the natural lighting of all areas through high windows: this improves the natural lighting inside the classrooms and makes it possible also for inner areas such as the circulation spaces and the multipurpose central hall.

Manufacturers Trust Company by SOM © Landmarks Preservation Commission

Architecture previously ran an article about the Manufacturers Trust Company Bank Branch at 510 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan designed by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and interior designer Eleanor H. Le Maire, a building designated as protected under the Landmarks Preservation Commission with first the exterior in 1997 and later the interior in early 2011.  But as recently as October 2011, the building was already listed under the 2012 Endangered Monuments Fund as the current owners, Vornado Realty Trust, began compromising the landmarked conditions of the interior of the building as it was being adapted for reuse.  With preservationists in an uproar, support for the protection of the building was enough to bring Vornado Realty Trust to New York State Supreme Court where a settlement was reached.

Read on for more details on the settlement and continuing efforts to protect endangered monuments.

do_co,mo.mo_us, an organization for the Documentation and Conservation of Buildings, Sites and Neighborhoods of the Modern Movement, reported on the settlement reached earlier this month: “Not a win, but a legal settlement with some positives“, as the title optimistically states.

The group of preservationists that stepped out to protect the building were actually responding to the Certificate of Appropriateness, issued by the very organization that was protecting the building, the Landmarks Preservation Commission, which according to the plaintiffs, “dramatically compromised the landmark-worthy qualities the Commission intended to protect when it designated the bank”.  The certificate was issued last April and had given Vornado Realty Trust the rights to alter the interior for reuse.  First, the upside:  Vornado “agreed not to build on top of the building, to request that the Commission include the black granite vault wall in the interior designation, and to extend the glass portion of the wall it will construct to divide the first floor into two separate leases”.  The company has also agreed to work with JP Morgan Chase to bring two of Harry Bertoia’s original sculptures back into the building: a 70-foot long golden arbor screen that was part of the second floor lobby, and a sculpture that floated over the paired escalators.

Manufacturers Trust Company by SOM © Landmarks Preservation Commission

In light of this, elements of the building’s interior are being restored to their original state and the exterior is being protected from excessive retrofitting.  On the other hand, and this is the point that DOCOMOMO NY/Tri-State makes, is that there has been no agreement on the placement of these sculptures.  Their position with the original design created focal points within the public spaces of the building’s interior.  It is now unclear how the future state of the interior will compare.  Additional downsides pointed out by DOCOMOMO are that the settlement fails to address the division of space that Vornado plans, which severely compromise the openness and transparency designed by Le Maire; it also does not address plans to rotate and relocate the escalators, pushing them further into the building and making them less visible from the street; nor does it say anything about plans to remove the 43rd street vestibule and add new entrances and signage on the Fifth Avenue facade, breaking the regularity and rhythm designed by Bunshaft.

Landmarks has still approved the removal of the black granite wall of the Henry Dreyfuss-designated vault, once a central and symbolic element of the bank’s identity in the original design.  It is to be repurposed and relocated.  The reason?  Vornado claims that it needs two retail tenants on the first floor to be “financially viable” and plans to alter the illuminated ceiling to designate where the safe once was.  Original plans included a floor to ceiling dividing wall between the two retail spaces, but this has been changed to accomodate a sheet of glass that will be 18 – 34 inches from the ceiling to protect the visual continuity of the ceiling, which is no landmarked as well.

Manufacturers Trust Company by SOM © Landmarks Preservation Commission

Maybe this is to be expected – but it is surprising that having the building designated as a landmark specifically for both its exterior and interior does not protect the details and spatial considerations of the original design for which it has been recognized as a monument.  It seems, in this case, that what the Certificate of Appropriateness has done is allow Vornado to change the experience of the interior space, so long as the physical space stays more or less intact.  This position undervalues the aspects of architecture that make buildings more than objects, that makes them experiences,ties them to memory.  When Vornado comes in to change those aspects – the transparency of the interior to and from the street, the openness of the plan, the regularity of its construction – it is changing much more about the building and undermines what Landmarks is looking to protect.

DOCOMOMO has amazing photos of the interior of Manufacturers Trust Bank, view them and the original article here.

Courtesy of María Isabel Bennasar Félix

Architect: María Isabel Bennasar Félix
Location: Barcelona, Spain
Client: Consorcid’Educació de Barcelona, PlaçaUrquinaona 6, 08010 Barcelona, tel. 935511000
Area: 1,080 sqm
Budget: 2,791,094 euros
Collaborators: Nursery School In Barcelona / Maria Isabel Bennasar Felix CorinaDindareanu.
Completion: 2011
Construction company: Construccions DECO S.A.
Photographs: Courtesy of María Isabel Bennasar Félix

Courtesy of María Isabel Bennasar Félix

M. Isabel Bennasar Félix, architect

The site is located in the block defined by the streets Àlaba, Doctor Trueta, Pamplona and Ramon Turro, in the city of Barcelona. An equipment area is created on the western side of the block, following the existent location of the high school and completing it with the new center, reserving space for future green area to the east.

elevations

This is a nursery of 9 groups in a building developed on the ground floor. The building is situated on the northern corner of the site, aligned with the street facade Ramon Turro and the north chamfer, continuing the line of closure of the institute, with an open facade to the yard, to east and south, where the classrooms are located. The volume is defined to the north by the kitchen, teachers’ dining room, administration, archive, and adapted toilet and the stroller storage, giving a facade to the chamfer and defining on one side the access and on the other side an inner courtyard to ventilate the kitchen and other services.

plan

The nine classes are organized into two groups: a group of four classrooms for children 2 / 3 years old that defines the eastern façade and the five remaining classrooms for infants and for children 1 / 2 years old, defining the southern facade. The access to the courtyard is situated between these two volumes of classrooms.
All classrooms have facade and direct access to the courtyard. The classrooms have two height levels, a higher one in contact with the facade and a lower one, where inner access is situated, as well as the water areas and bedrooms.

sections

The multipurpose hall is situated as a central element, the highest volume that organizes the whole distribution scheme, with direct access to the classrooms of the 2 / 3 years old. The hall is connected to all areas of the center, and receives daylight through high windows, situated above the other volumes. The classrooms for infants and the 1 / 2 years old is given access through a space defined by a volume of services that opens to the inner courtyard facade, where the workshop, storage, laundry, changing rooms are located, as well as the teachers’ room, also opened to the central space.
Developing the volume of the school at different heights allows the natural lighting of all areas through high windows: this improves the natural lighting inside the classrooms and makes it possible also for inner areas such as the circulation spaces and the multipurpose central hall.

© Christian Flatscher

Architect: Daniel Fügenschuh
Location: Rattenberg, Österreich, Austria
Client: Rattenberger Immobilien GmbH
Project Year: 2011
Floor Space: 250 sqm
Photographs: Christian Flatscher

© Christian Flatscher

A 15th century monastery in Rattenberg, Tyrol was first transformed to a secondary school with a new gym extension in the early 1970ies. To meet today’s social needs and pedagogic standards a new school extension became necessary so pupils can stay after school and get lunch. Open plan zones will free up space to allow for alternative teaching methods.

With a modern approach of protecting architectural heritage the building opens up to the historic centre re-defining the importance of the school in the urban context of Rattenberg.