Transforming a School into Interpretation Flamenco Center by García Torrente Arquitectos

Description of project by García Torrente Arquitectos SLP

Face with  any task or  formal considerations, it is relevant to take into account two principles to deal with the ecological crisis situation of the planet:

1-Terretory is a scarse ressource.

2-In order to avoid its misuse, it is necessary to extend the life cycle of the buildings and public spaces in it.

The project is conceptually based on the following premises: understanding how unique the process of restoration, rehabilitation and retraining; encouraging manual local labor, as much as possible, with easily enforceable traditional techniques and materials; scheduling the work  in a consensual way with the owners, social partners and  construction companies.This means, therefore, to take an ecological stance, to rescue the collective memory and social development in order to meet the artistic and cultural needs of a town hard hit by the crisis.

The cultural assets have a series of values that the architecture project has to understand, interpret, preserve and promote to be integrated as would be expected, in the social, cultural and economic life of the community. The adaptation between these future needs and the inherited preservation have to be done from a cultural perspective in its own temporal context and according to the future ideals of the society.

In the old Colegio Ignacio Halcón of Lebrija, two convergent circumstances have been the thread conductor of the architectural proposal: the spatial complexity and the constructive simplicity of  the property. The complexity came from its history; the annexations and divisions of the different usage and  the works of adaptation had trasformed it without destroying it. The constructive simplicity, thanks to its formal resources, has made it possible to  multiply its spatial possibility and functional flexibility.