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Biblioteca Baiona

Imagen Subliminal, Murado & Elvira

Cou-cou! Playing hide and seek inside the Baiona Public Library.


Accommodated within the former Sancti Spiritus Hospital, an existing structure built in the 17th century behind the ex-collegiate church of Santa María, the Baiona Public Library is a two-level building embedded in the sloped historic city center with a garden and an inner courtyard, designed by Murado & Elvira Architects.

When, in 2010, after winning the competition to design the Public Library and Historic Archive of the city of Baiona (Spain), Murado & Elvira started to design the place, they decided that the Sancti Spiritus Hospital should reconquer its original role, by becoming a new home for scholars and readers: what they needed to do was to design a place that would convey a sense of domesticity to its users, so they came up with the idea of a warm wooden dress, tailor-made for the ancient building.

Now a video by Imagen Sublimal celebrates the grand opening of the biblioteca to the public: some places are meant to be inhabitated and this is certainly one of them. Upon the opening the architects said that "when we first visited the old building we felt the need for our project to create a new interior identity, connecting and giving continuity to the old structures" and the video proves their efforts to be successful. Here, following the adventure of some girls, we explore the building, we play with the wooden furnitures, we discover hidden doors and transformable spaces.

Then, moving upstairs, we see how the community respondend to this place, gathering in its rooms. The video also let us wander in the garden and in the courtyard. We also see how the architects have work to preserve history: the main axis is marked by a thick stone wall, reminiscent of the old granite structure, that gathers archeological pieces from the original building, bonding memories and heritage to the new function of the building.

Credits

Mentioned project: Baiona Public Library (2015-2018)
Project location: Baiona, Spain
Directors: Imagen Subliminal (Miguel de Guzman+Rocio Romero)
Music: Kevin McLeod

Spain 2018
Duration: 1'32"