“A house, a palace”
Renewal of the old primary school “Divino Pastor” into a Cultural Center Competition, finalist
With the expression “a house, a palace” Le Corbusier refers not only to the possibility of bringing the complexity of an institutional building into an elemental volume but to the idea that architectural design consists of bringing the greatness and dignity of a palace into the most humble space.
The project organizes all the uses in a simple way. Inside the existing structure, the more specific program such as music rooms, changing rooms or office rooms, concentrate on the back side, leaving the front of the building completely open. This way we combine the domestic scale of small rooms with the big open representative areas.
On the ground floor, the theatre, the entrance and the workshop areas are part of a great interior landscape that could be subdivided with wooden and glass sliding walls with different degrees of opacity.
On the first floor, the great hall occupies the whole length of the building and opens to the plaza. Wooden boxes containing auxiliary programs filter the general circulations for the music school.
Just like one of the galleries in a Castle, this area with a non-programmed use, is the main feature of the building, providing a collective and public scale to the Cultural Center.
The wooden boxes climb up to the roof, perforating the blind space under it, making the depth of the volume visible. The same boxes go down as well, connecting visually both levels through the main staircase.
