Type: Hall / Client: Pharmaceutical company / Location:
Sant Cugat / Area: 1.900m² /
Architects: TwoBo / Date: 2022 /Constructor: FCC /
Engineers: INDUS
A pharmaceutical company based in Sant Cugat wanted a project to connect diferent
buildings together through their respective lower levels, in an attempt to transform this
space into a Hall, a Foyer and an Auditorium.
In architecture you often hear that an empty space should be defined by what’s built in it,
nothing more, nothing less. The empty space was there, already built, naked… and we
became tailors instead of architects. From the measurements of the naked body
(waistline, hips, the way the shoulders fall down) a tailor reimagines the body in fabrics.
Rediscovering it through imagination and covering it with tangible shapes, all in the
same effort.
With this attitude the curved facade was redrawn as clean as possible to turn it into a
gesture that runs from one end to the other. The installations in the patio, like misplaced
scraps of cloth, were removed to make a yoke out of it, like a frame that fits over the
shoulders and neck of someone. All the different concrete pillars were dressed with
tailor-made pieces that remind us of Alvar Aaltos’ clean and ample spaces in his big
universities. The ceilings were bulged up with a mantle of catalan-style vaults to connect
everything coherently with the pillars. The wood walls were curved, making way for
people to flow around them like wind on a dress that falls free, top to bottom. Last but
not least, blue; a big curtain in the background to act as a petticoat.
Like accessories to a dress, we placed jewels with personality here and there to make the
place human, even in the absence of people: a slim sinuous handrail, some large and thin
pillars dressed for the occasion, a corten staircase that goes up the middle of the patio, a
sun (yes, like the Sun) hidden in a bathroom. All of these set the mood for the main piece
of the project.
An auditorium for 380 people. The wood on the walls act as a socle that encircles the
room downhill next to the seat rows, giving warmth and texture to the opened hands of
whomever walks down that runway. In opposition to the wood, the ceiling floats in white
waves similar to fabric that moves up alongside light and sound. This will become the
backdrop to the companys’ big events.