All creative minds have their own vocabularies, so that the glossary of a fashion designer may revolve around specific shapes and silhouettes, while architects build their structural semantics via windows, doorways, floors and roofs.
This truism applies to all architects and in particular to Barcelona-based Ricardo Flores and Eva Prats, as proved by an exhibition currently on at the Roca Gallery in London.
"What Where: Crossing Boundaries in the Architecture of Sala Beckett" (until 31st August) is first and foremost a celebration of the story of this theatre and of its rebirth.
In 1989, before dying, Samuel Beckett was asked to name a new drama company and its theatre after him. This is how Sala Beckett, founded by actor Luis Miguel Climent and playwright José Sanchis Sinisterra and located in a former 1920s workers' cooperative building in the Poblenou district of Barcelona, was born.
The sala is not a proper theatre, but a space where people meet and create ("sala" means "hall" in Spanish) and where experiments between actors and audiences can be developed.
In 2011 Flores & Prats (who worked in the past with the late Enric Miralles) won a competition to renovate the Sala Beckett, that had been derelict for 30 years.
Abandoned in a state of decay, with rain, wind and pigeons were getting in, constantly and relentlessly destroying its structure, the building would have probably been demolished by other architects.
Yet Flores and Prats were fascinated by the state of decay of the building: the roof had a hole and the sunlight penetrated through it, this ray of light shining at the centre of the old scenery represented a new possible future in which the revamped building may have returned to be a gathering place for people.
"What Where", a title inspired by Beckett's final play, invites visitors who missed last year's "Sala Beckett" installation at the 16th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice (the images in this post refer to the Venice Biennale installation) to catch up with the project (this is the first time the models, detailed inventories and measured drawings are exhibited in London following their display at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale) and learn more about Flores & Prats' personal vocabulary and architectural language.
At the Architecture Biennale it was possible to discover the background research for the Sala Beckett and look at the various scale models that showed plans for the roof and for the various interior spaces.
At the Biennale, the models occupied a dedicated part of the Arsenale in which the architects had also recreated a section of Sala Beckett with the hole in the roof that had inspired them. In this way they had merged two cities, Venice and Barcelona, and two buildings, the Arsenale and Sala Beckett.
At the exhibition at Roca (curated by Vicky Richardson), the pieces on display create instead a contrast with the space, designed by the late Zaha Hadid, an architect who developed her language in a digital immaterial space.
Flores & Prats instead favour the human dimension and have a passion for materials and physical models. Even if you're not an architect, you are instantly attracted by their maquettes, at times resembling familiar dolls' houses, at others evoking the functional scale mockups employed by set designers and choreographers to test their ideas and visions.
The coldness of 3D printed architectural models is left behind to refocus on miniature crafts characterised by precise details (check out Flores and Prats' studies for doors and windows).
Hand-drawings form the backbone of the exhibition as they are the background research for the project and show detailed studies of doors, windows, ceilings, cornices and floor tiles.
The recreation of Flores & Prats' office is a sort of cabinet of curiosities filled with exquisite models and drawings related to the project, showing how their fascination with the decaying building prompted them not to merely renew it, erasing its history, but to recreate its structure and allow it to step into a new era and enter into a new life.
There is a difference between last year's installation at the Venice Architecture Biennale and "What Where": the latter features indeed a rare screening of Beckett’s short "Film" (1965), starring Buster Keaton in one of the actor's last roles.
Yet it is not the similarities or differences between the exhibition at Roca and the installation at the Venice Biennale that ultimately count, but the final message of this project that is deeply connected with Beckett.
Beckett was indeed a cosmopolitan writer who, as highlighted on Roca Gallery's site, "crossed boundaries in his life and work, and created characters that resonated with audiences around the world."
An Irishman who made Paris his home and wrote in French, his second language, he "reminds us of the universal human condition as opposed to the particularism of identity, which is increasingly emphasised". In a nutshell, this project symbolically hints at the possibility of creating transnational links through culture, the performing arts and the glossary of architecture.
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