INSTITUTIONAL PROSTHESIS 2 (EACC)

INSTITUTIONAL PROSTHESIS materialize and it's the preamble to a wider reflection that it's wanted to be done from de EACC, about the museum, it's limits and its new capacity to make links with the urban, social and politic framework: the city and its associated sceneries.

IP is a production of Santiago Cirugeda in a narrow collaboration with the EACC, which comes from a common reflection about the new uses and possibilities of an art centre.

The project consists of two 50 m2 cells which are projected from the frontage of the EACC towards the square in front of it. Both sells are joined by a corridor that passes in parallel to the above mentioned frontage and stops in the terrace next to the building's office. The access to this new architectural set is independent of the rest of the centre's installations. Those spaces, baptized with sarcasm the "fat man" and the "thin man", are covered by a skin of black plastic mouldings, wish are habitually used to cast concrete, crossed each of them by four metallic rods. The frontal part of this habitable cell is made of glass in its entire surface, which turns it in a public space or a semi-public space depending on its use and the will of its occupiers. The optical perception of the Cirugeda's prothesis, like an organic vibrant structure, comes based in a principle of economy and displacement with regard to the materials that shapes it.

The skin of industrial element, almost handmade, can be read as an ironic comment about the (ab)use of the high-tech in the majority of the actual architectonical production.

Even if this is a temporary intervention, its construction and staging get nearly to the idea of architecture, therefore, turns its author in an architect. Even when this is obvious, it is worth to be said, knowing the strategies and methods that Cirugeda uses to make his work.

The constructive process, as have being habitual in his project, is based in the principle of a formula or a pattern applicable to any other previous architectural situations. Under the organizational scheme of "Recetas Urbanas", that the artist put to the disposition for potential authors of this constructive solutions, is established a repertoire of functions and responsibilities that goes from the architecture (architect), the construction ( the constructor y the operators), the social environment ( the users), the urban subversion (the okkupas…)… all of them are agents who have to establish their own laws and have to establish new devices of shock in the frame of urban legalities.

Though an architectural vocabulary, strident with the urban context which surrounds it, this intervention, which parasite the most public frontage of the pre-exist buildings, compromise a true declaration of intentions on the role and responsibilities of the museum's institution. The city understood as a the defined frame of performances- not only because of its capacities as a possible scenario for interventions, but also because it comprises a complex network of situations, confluences, misunderstanding, of, definitely, social energy- this prosthesis or built parasite represents not only a antechamber of meetings and negotiations, it also represent a space of resistance. 

 

Juan De Nieves (EACC Art Director)

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EXECUTION UNIT

 

An architect and/or artist, just making his international breakthrough, tries to establish a contemporary art centre. He extends the spatial and functional capacity of the museum through an intervention for which, together with the directors, they cede these spaces for adjacent functions and their management. The intervention consists in piercing the existing construction (as structural connection points), concrete tiles over the existing cantilever inserted in the steel structure, double T-section wooden trusses, and sandwich panel (waterproof sheet, polystyrene, OSB) for flooring, auxiliary steel structure, aluminum carpentry, sandwich panels (steel - polyurethane - steel) plasticized lamination of PVC, DM panels with cement particles and PVC casing, and iron screw rods for outside closing. They all reinvent the aesthetics of the ugly. Moreover, there is air conditioning, lighting devices, fireproof devices, cables and all the necessary equipment like plasticized cardboard panels, cellular polycarbonate, glazing and laminated sandwich (aluminum - polystyrene - aluminum) for finishing. The project was coordinated by a self-exiled Italian. Due to the smooth coordination of the three operating teams, of the machines, and building materials led to the execution of the "Institutional 'Prosthesis'" in only seven weeks. The work was carried out without a proper building permit or approval of the Chamber of Architects. Additionally, a prestigious and favorable media campaign was started and later one that ridiculed and deprecated the project.

 

Subject > Artist with architect degree.

Consultants > Lorenza Barboni, Santiago Cantero Pascual, Francisco Cervera (plasterer), Santiago Chacón Oliva, José Doménech Lerma, Agustín Expósito Valero, Fernando Fernández (blacksmith's assistant), Sr. Fortuño, Isabel Herrero Serral, Carlo Magoni, Miguel Ángel Mínguez Díaz, Juan de Nieves, H. P. Piñero (electrician) , Federico Rodrigo Corachán (blacksmith), Antonio Rodríguez Checa and, of course, Gianluca Stasi.

Unique materials > Second hand structures used to stabilize the exterior walls and recycled plastic cases (normally used in concrete casting) used in a different way.

Description > Institutional Prosthesis in the Espai d'Art Contemporani de Castelló (EACC).

Surface area > 143 m2 for two classroom buildings, 181 m2 sheets of floating concrete, 264 m2 of left-over occupied space.

 

 

 

ANTECEDENTS

Re-opening of the Museum

 

The team that was to run the Center demanded three groups of architects to come up with a theoretical justification about the museum. Out of the three teams (Lacaton and Vassal, François Roche and Santiago Cirugeda), only one offered a project including the plans of a inhabitable installation in the museum, plus a plan of execution and budget. The theory focused on the functions that could be associated with the center of contemporary art and included a reunion and workspace that could be used without any restraint. The directors decided to have the installation built, because they felt they shared much the idea of completing the infrastructure with the center program. Moreover, they liked the association of the with an emerging architect.

 

 

 

STRATEGY AND PROCESS

An Aula in the Museum

 

The fast way in which it was put up and the low cost (around 600 E per sq m) were unusual for the current contemporary art center projects. Two weeks before the project was completed and the public opening, the institution promoting the project and the local council architect demanded the urban certificate and building permit, which had been denied because the author was not an architect. Therefore, he had to carry out his work as an artistic installation. The directors of the Contemporary Art Space guaranteed for the artist's approach. At the opening, neither the journalists nor the politicians were capable to admit they "saw" it or "define" it. The hint to the Mediterranean nature of the object that looked like a hedgehog was given a political interpretation because it did not follow any formal typology or offered a hint to its function. The exterior walls of the 'Prosthesis', covered in the PVC cases fixed on the structural tiling to avoid direct contact with sun, displayed an interesting "image" that cost almost nothing. The texture can be photographed and be a debate topic among journalists and politicians about the exterior finishing. Meanwhile, the project can lead to architectural critique and validate the adoption of a simple architecture, not one that just emphasizes the latest materials and fashion. In fact, it is but a spectacular covering playing on the major of the new space - its function. The 'prosthesis' was thought as a workspace opened to every team, an urban lab that can work independent of the institutional control.

 

 

 

EVALUATION

Critique of Spectacular Façade

 

The Castellón hall is not just a critique against museums and their capacity to build "unique" edifices without thinking about function. This project advocates that function is a major instrument of a very clear architectural program. This 'prosthesis' generates a reunion and learning space, separated from the work schedule; it can be used by the city associations and for museum activities. In fact, it functions as a work center for minority teams, educational activities held by the museum and reunion center for artists. Thus, it fulfills its goal of bringing in human and social value in the museum instead of focusing on real estate value, since it is but a temporary building. On the other hand, it denies its use as a landmark, as it happened in other Spanish cities. The artist who assumes the role of an architect takes an ideological stand as to the project. Since its urban permit was denied to it, the 'Prosthesis' could be defined as a non-architectural space that gives value to the activity it will shelter.

 

   Texts from the book "Situaciones Urbanas",

   edited by TENOV S.L, Barcellona, 2007, ISBN: 978-84-611-8342-5