Xavier Ros, Roger Tudó i David Lorente: "Public buildings belong to no one and are for everyone."

TerraceThe Harquitectes studio It is experiencing a splendid moment, with six major public projects underway, two of which are the expansions of the MACBA and the MNAC. A few days after to present the MNAC project Harquitectes received the ARA award at the new headquarters of Prodis, the Terrassa-based foundation dedicated to the comprehensive care and support of adults with intellectual disabilities, mental disorders, cerebral palsy, or autism spectrum disorder. For this project, the result of the rehabilitation of former industrial buildings that were part of Vapor Cortès, Harquitectes are finalists for the Mies van der Rohe Award for European Architecture. "The award certainly excites us, especially when I see how excited the people at Prodis are, who have undergone a great transformation with this building," says Roger Tudó, one of the studio's founders, along with Xavier Ros, David Lorente, and Josep Ricart, who is not participating in this interview.

Architecture can play a crucial role in care. At the new Prodis headquarters, critical episodes experienced by some users have decreased by 60%.

— Roger TudóThere's a combination of factors. Perhaps the most important is the size of the space. Here, the space is very generous, and this is combined with a high level of naturalness: the light, the materials, and the ventilation have all contributed greatly. The typical structure of a center of this type—or of a school, or a hospital—is a corridor and a sequence of very enclosed spaces, whereas here there's a kind of fluid space, where users can autonomously decide what they do and how they move around.

One of the most distinctive features of Prodis is that they have cut the ground floor of the central nave of Vapor Cortès and turned it into a corridor that organizes the internal uses of the foundation and, in turn, is a public passage.

— RTThe client asked us for a more open institution. In these centers, the users have always been somewhat hidden, somewhat apart from society; so, the idea of ​​dividing the building and bringing in a street creates friction with the community, since the vast majority of users have the opportunity to be very much in contact with real life.

Is this passage related in any way to the gallery of the MACBA extension and the covered boulevard of the MNAC?

— David LorenteNot only with these two projects, but in most of our projects there is always this exploration of blurring or creating spaces that are neither interior nor urban. We've realized that we also do this in single-family homes.

— RT: In houses, these spaces are patios, galleries and porches, and when we have progressively moved to larger scale buildings, these artifacts take on more of a dimension like large urban rooms where this transition occurs.

— Xavier RosAs with Prodis, the MNAC's commission is also inward-looking. They want to exhibit more work, but these intermediate pieces transcend the commission itself and become a transformative element. In the case of the MNAC, it opens the museum to the city.

— RT: In both the MACBA and the MNAC, the main exhibition space is highly sensitive, requiring very controlled, and sometimes highly artificial, lighting and temperature conditions. However, it is precisely in these preliminary stages that architecture likely has the greatest capacity for expression. Therefore, the intensity is largely generated in the transition from the visitor's visit to the exhibition space.

Has the challenge of expanding the MNAC been very different from that of the MACBA?

— RTThe MACBA project is primarily about resolving the site's inherent conflict. The space is very complex because it's an accumulation of different buildings, and it was quite difficult to imagine how to place a new building within it, given the tangled web. We believe that what our project contributes is finding a new kind of order within an amalgam of historical buildings, ranging from the convent to relatively recent structures. Our building ties everything together somewhat, and at the same time, it's very porous, allowing public space to flow in. Each project is different, and in a way, this difference stems from a kind of reflection of a previous archetype: in the MNAC, it's more of a covered passageway, while in the MACBA, it's more the idea of ​​a porch. Both models are connected to the urban and the public, with different typologies but similar underlying values.

In a team of four, how is the work divided?

— DLFrom the beginning, we've felt the need to communicate with each other, although it's clear that there's always someone else involved in each project. Even though our weeks are getting busier, we've expanded this dialogue and reinforced it with some firm decisions. It's true that, over time, we've specialized: I'm more involved everywhere and nowhere in depth, while Roger, Xavi, and Josep handle projects thoroughly, from start to finish, depending on the schedule and their relationship with the client. But there's always an exchange between us, and also with the entire firm.

They have six major public projects on the table: the expansions of the Macba and the MNAC, the rehabilitation of the Arnau Theatre, the transformation of the old Foneria de canons into a digital arts center, a civic center in Nou Barris and the rehabilitation of the Bòbila Carmen in Teixonera as a space for entities.

— DLYes, it's true that, looking at the present moment, it seems like many interesting situations and projects have come together, but it all started in 2017 with the first project, which was the renovation of the Teatre Arnau. With the Covid pandemic, culture was somewhat put on hold. stand by while other issues were being resolved, so it's the work of ten years.

— RT: The shift in scale towards more institutional and cultural facilities has indeed led us to change or reorient some of our design approaches—that is, the strategies we use. Many of these strategies, as we mentioned, focus on always finding spaces or elements of a significant scale, but other issues arise related to the opportunity presented by a commission of this nature. For example, at Prodis, we've had the opportunity to redefine what a center of this type is, which means proposing to the client that they use the building differently so that what happens inside takes on new meanings. It's a significant change, one that, fundamentally, you already make in private homes, because you influence how people live. It might seem that institutional architecture is dictated from above, but we're seeing that we can transform the very idea of ​​what a library is, for instance.

— XRI would define it very simply: public buildings don't belong to anyone and they belong to everyone. This means there aren't egos trying to dominate the decisions, as sometimes happens with a private client. In public commissions, there's a certain distance, and that's a good thing. At the same time, they present the challenge that, although you understand the potential user or try to imagine what happens, you're actually working for people you don't interact with, which broadens the scope of the project's evolution.

— RTIn more institutional settings or large facilities, we've noticed a kind of complex layer that, depending on the context, is key: how to avoid the overly operational and functional, almost self-protective, biases that the staff in these buildings have. I'll use the Prodis example again: these people are caring for individuals with disabilities, and it's very difficult. When we first met them, they were defensive and would have preferred a kind of perfect hospital. Our approach was the opposite: we told them that we addressed certain functional issues, but that we would move beyond that to create a situation designed not around problems but around strengths. In a library, a theater, or a museum, our work is often the same: to help people understand that, despite the fact that the lives of those who work there are full of minor problems, there are other things they can contribute significantly. It's about striking a balance, dismantling these biases, and guiding them toward better outcomes.

Is the way they approach a renovation very different from when they design a new building?

— RTThe overall strategy might be similar, but the existing structure limits you. For example, we found the Arnau Theatre in a very fragile state, but at the same time, it's the only remaining example of a shantytown theatre in Barcelona. Therefore, it's an element with great symbolic and historical value and little value as a building. So the strategy has been very special and unique: we've created a kind of almost inverse system in which the old structure is fixed, as if it were a fossil, within a new concrete amalgam that reinforces it. You see what existed before, but it's no longer structural. Each case is very specific: in other buildings, the site's condition will dictate other solutions. At Prodis, the structural reinforcement of the existing beams makes it unique.

— XRA pre-existing building is, in essence, a kind of built landscape, like a forest or a beach. It creates a contextual condition that is also physical, because you have a structure like this that you integrate with the new addition and make it work in a certain way in relation to what you add. But there is also an aspect that always makes a difference, which is the attempt to preserve or take advantage of the building's history and to preserve its character, sometimes very explicitly and other times more subtly.

— RTSomething we've worked on quite a bit is incorporating time into architecture. A pre-existing structure already carries within it a certain amount of time, which makes it easier for the building to acquire character. We also try to achieve this even in newly constructed buildings. We strive for the building to be like an embedded time, to embody the time of the construction process, because, in a way, it connects you to something historical. Our buildings are often new, yet they seem to have been in that place for twenty or fifty years.

Your partners in the extensions of the MACBA and the MNAC, the Swiss architects Emanuel Christ and Christoph Gantenbein, state that they share with you "a rational vision" of architecture. What has it been like collaborating with them?

— DLThey are museum experts, and we're from similar generations. They had already contacted us about a project in Bilbao that we didn't end up doing, but the idea was there, and we saw that we could work together. Their approach to projects is very similar to ours, and that's why we collaborated again on the MNAC expansion: although we no longer needed each other based on our experience, it was a conscious choice because we believed we could all create a better project.

They are known for their meticulous oversight of their projects, which would be more difficult if they worked abroad. Have they considered expanding internationally in any way?

— XRAs long as we have good opportunities here, clearly not. We've been fortunate that, generally, a framework has developed that has allowed us to work exclusively here, and that's not by chance: it's what we've sought out, because, among other things, doing what we do requires absolute control, from the first decision to the last, at every moment and with every stakeholder. This is very difficult to achieve even here, and after 25 years of carrying out projects, discussing, persuading, understanding the rules, understanding the institutions, understanding everything, we're in an unbeatable position here. When we go abroad—and we have done so occasionally, sporadically, because tempting opportunities arise in terms of being able to do something that we can't do here, a different kind of building—and we evaluate it, we realize that we would have to start all over again to understand other contexts.

— RTThe day may come when it finally happens, so that the office grows, so that the project is exceptional, or so that it becomes a wonderful place.

— DLWhen we looked abroad, we realized that architects there have a different role: they're generally more focused on design, whereas here, in our regulatory context, architects are responsible for everything, not just the design but also the final construction. You start to see that, probably, we're not as necessary there. It's also true that we have work here now because we've created the space for it; if we had looked abroad, we probably wouldn't have been able to. We won't design many buildings in our lifetime; therefore, we must be very clear about where we allocate our time.

The museum is an iconic architectural style. It has been described as the cathedral of the 20th and 21st centuries. How does this relate to the emblematic character a building can possess?

— DLIn museums, everyone generally accepts that architecture is as important as any other aspect, and therefore there's a general tendency for them to be unique buildings. We were talking earlier about whether or not to renovate, and I think we approach programs in a similar way. We focus on creating the best possible building, not necessarily the best museum or the best house. We consider how to bring out the best attributes of the project at hand. Historically, this has led us to construct buildings that, for me, are very special, but which are certainly not as spectacular as other architectural works.

— RTThis has a lot to do with our idea of ​​novelty and the drive to advance the discipline compared to other office models. In our case, we always have the need to innovate, but at the same time, we have to ground these innovations and make them a condition that we won't tire of in five or ten years. We also try to find a very architectural sense of temporality. We're always making small inventions, but situated at a point where they're assimilable. We're not looking for some kind of alien, something alien that's never been done and that nobody understands, but rather something new, yet very intricately connected to the whole of our lives and humanity's, a more continuous condition.

— XRIt's clear that the MACBA extension isn't as striking as the Guggenheim Bilbao, but I think the new gallery will have a profound impact on how the building is perceived from the outside: it will completely change it. When we started the studio, we tended to imagine that, objectively, the best thing was always to go unnoticed, and this has evolved into an architecture linked to references whose origins you don't quite know, but which everyone recognizes. It might be somewhat conservative, but it will change the perception of the museum building itself: the change will be radical. Something similar is happening at the MNAC, but on the inside. The symbolic reference that people will have when they think of the MNAC, as with the Sagrada Família and the spires on its towers, will be the interior, because, on the outside, Puig i Cadafalch's palace is basically a wall with sgraffito columns and entrance pavilions. This condition that we defined earlier as a semi-urban, semi-interior space is what will ultimately shape the transformation of the MNAC extension.