Credits
From Caterina Maza Krebs
Location
The apartment building is located in a very special area of the city, on the right side of the Eixample, within Barcelona’s Cuadrat d’Or (Golden Quadrant) on the legendary Ronda de Sant Pere Avenue, which connects the Arco del Triunfo with Plaça Catalunya. It is also right by the El Born neighborhood, which offers a wide array of quality restaurants, shops and cafes.
Barcelona’s Golden Quadrant displays some of the most iconic buildings of Modernist Barcelona.
The Golden Quadrant is an area which comprises what is known as “The new Eixample”, created in 1860 after the demolition of the wall that enclosed Barcelona. This area contains some of the city’s most emblematic Modernist buildings, such as “Casa Batlló” and “La Pedrera”, by Gaudí, “Casa Amatller”, “Casa Sayrach” and “Casa Burés”.
A New Proposal
This apartment offers the subtleties of real luxury due to its unique distribution and the incomparable space it offers. It’s a 256 square meter flat located in a late 1800s building, divided in two parts: the daytime area and the nighttime area. A stream of light is created from the front windows going through each one of the arcades all the way to the gallery, leaving behind an impressive halo of light. The ceiling is 3.6 meters high, generating a magnificently relaxing sense of open space, and its ornamental elements have been carefully restored in order to stand out and fill each room with a charm of its own.
The absence of hallways and the open central axis which separates the apartment in two very defined areas bestow a certain nobility to the space.
From an architectural point of view, the intervention has been carried out with the utmost respect to the nobility with which this apartment was made. Its interior design is both elegant and sophisticated, transmitting to the present day the luxury and exclusivity this noble apartment represented in 1905. As it was then, the great halls continue to astonish and, in every corner of the house, it offers the most optimal features of the era.
Restoration process
The restoration process focused on rescuing and restoring the most valuable ornamental elements, such as the ceiling’s rosettes and the walls’ moldings, but above all, the frescoes in the L-shaped gallery which leads to a fourth room that could well be used as a studio. This gallery has fresco and stucco work which frame, with roses in pink and aquamarine tones, the doors as well as decorating the gallery’s walls.
Apartment Flooring
Douglas medium grain pine wood throughout the floor (halls, dining room, bedrooms and gallery) presenting a sober and elegant flooring which will combine perfectly with the floor’s ornamental elements.
Bathroom flooring
The bathroom floors are inspired by the iconic showroom Negozio Olivetti by Carlo Scarpa in Venice. As the original ceramic flooring was severely damaged, we decided to use the same color palette in the most original way. This is where the idea of using marble in the same tones came from, cutting them in small formats in order to cover the remaining spaces with terrazzo and reproducing the technique used by Scarpa.
380 – 750
The lighting proposal developed by 380-750, a company dedicated to offering and managing lighting projects both for big retail corporations (Zara, Armani or Nik) and private clients. This proposal has taken into consideration criteria such as the amount of light each apartment area receives during the day. Therefore, the areas with less light have been compensated with warm and adjustable artificial light.
On the other hand, the lighting intended for the gallery is quite museum-like, as it is directed toward the wall. So, when the light bounces off, it may enhance our appreciation of the wall itself. Furthermore, elements such as the “stream of light” mentioned earlier, also have a special lighting which seeks to imitate their natural light effect at night.
Iconic light switches
We placed Iconic light switches in brushed gold in order to match all the house’s metal elements. Due to the great amount of lighting options each space will have, the majority of them will be triple switches and each one will include a dimmer to regulate the light intensity.
Bathrooms
The bedroom bathrooms have an arched entrance through which one can enter by the middle closet doors. These doors can stay completely open as they will remain hidden, leaving only a lighted archway at plain sight.
The bathroom fittings, for the washbasins and the showers, the towel heaters and racks, will be made of brass in a very plain style (as is shown in the reference pictures) to maintain the apartment’s simplicity and elegance.
Kitchen
Current kitchens play the role of a meeting point, as they are a vital space in which one spends a great amount of free time sharing with one’s significant other, family or friends. This is why kitchens today, even in smaller apartments with lack of space, tend to be more open and no longer form part of the flat’s many isolated spaces, hidden from the eyes of whoever visits.
The proposal for this kitchen, which works as a connecting axis between the two wings of the house, is divided in two: the one leading toward the entrance and the other which is more isolated from the entrance. They are both connected by a countertop laminated in dark blue which runs along the wall from one side to the other.
The reason for this division is to have a kitchen with a very simple and clean style at plain sight, with the Bulthaup blue-colored countertop and the stainless-steel island, keeping the kitchen appliances and the storage of cleaning products hidden or out of sight. In addition, we are placing brass enclosures with glass doors in order to offer the option of closing the kitchen entirely.
Hudevad radiators
These Danish radiators are known for their high quality, their simple and elegant design, and their state-of-the-art technology. They present iconic designs which, being a novelty back in the ‘30, have today become classics. Because of the apartment’s specific features, we’ve decided to choose the Classic model for the majority of the flat, and the Optimum model for the gallery, as the latter adapts perfectly to this particular space and its heating needs.