Modernist seduction with an abstract finish

The Bach Arquitectes studio renovated a stately Modernist building in Barcelona and extended it with two contemporary duplex penthouses. This was a meticulous project that paid close attention to the past and present.

Modernism in architecture was a brief but intense movement. At the turn of the 20th century, art burst onto the city's facades with the triumph of the curved line and nature as an exuberant source of inspiration. A century later, the ornamental vocation integrated into that architecture continues to seduce the inhabitants and visitors of the cities where it flourished. At the same time, it is a challenge to restore it and adapt it to current regulations and idiosyncrasies. This has been the case with the modernist building Dolors Alesan in Barcelona - commissioned in 1902 from the architect Enric Fatjó i Torres - which has been completely refurbished by the architectural firm of Jaume and Eugeni Bach.

Colourful leaded stained glass windows and facade tribunes, floral metalwork for railings, stone ornaments, wood carvings, subtle stucco on walls, plasterwork rosettes on roofs, hydraulic-patterned flooring... Bach Arquitectes had to undertake a historical research project and an exhaustive cataloguing, redrawing all the decorative elements of the building, as there was no documentary archive. Later they had the collaboration of expert craftsmen from each branch to replicate the damaged pieces. In addition to the painstaking restoration of the heritage building, the project includes a new housing programme, doubling the number of homes from eight to sixteen on the four existing floors.

An extension has also been made with two newly built duplex penthouses. In response to this last requirement of the property's owners, Bach Arquitectes has designed a contemporary finish on the roof, a volume with a significant degree of abstraction. Set back from the main facade, it can only be glimpsed from certain points on the outside.

To compose it, the architects themselves designed a piece of stoneware ceramic, with a circular section and a similar tone to the stone of the facade. Repeated, it forms a ribbed cladding of vertical slats and wraps around the upper floor of the duplexes, above the lower glazed one. It is completed by a system of shutters where the same sequence is replicated in wood, so that when closed they go unnoticed.

With the new abstract finish of the Dolors Alesan building, Bach Arquitectes proposes to establish a dialogue with the lantern of the neighbouring Macaya Palace. This adjoining property is also protected as heritage. Its rehabilitation and conversion into a museum was carried out by Jaume Bach himself in 1989.

The architects point out one of the challenges of the project: “This was to ensure that the architectural and decorative restoration is compatible with current regulations on fire resistance, insulation of adjoining rooms and between rooms and the exterior, and accessibility. In each case, a meticulous study has allowed us to find measures that combine both objectives.”

This is the case, for example, for the obligation to incorporate a ramp at the entrance, to overcome the architectural barrier of the steps. In order not to detract from the original historical space, it was decided to subtract a few metres from one of the side premises of the building on the ground floor and install it there.

Jaume Bach emphasises the compositional quality of the original facade and how, a century ago, the decorative elements and their progression on each floor emphasised the status of its inhabitants. What was once the most privileged floor is confirmed by the ostentatious, profusely ornamented stone railing between the two sinuous glass display cases. Today, the prestige of height has been reversed. In the new attics, the largest apartments with their 190 m² are located. Each one also has two generous terraces, on the main and rear facades: these are private open-air spaces, that are currently highly valued in dense cities.

The meticulous attention paid by Jaume and Eugeni Bach in their architectural work has extended to the relationship that this example of modernism establishes with the city and the light image from the outside. To paraphrase Eugeni Bach: ‘When you act on an entire property, you can control the light that it projects outwards’. So, on the rear facade with its galleries, typical of Barcelona's Eixample district, they arranged the spherical lamps to generate an order and harmony of light when the lights are switched on.

© All images: Eugeni Bach

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