Recovered Spaces For Cultural / Public Use Management Of Culture

CULTURAL MANAGEMENT PROGRAM University of Barcelona PUBLIC MANAGEMENT OF CULTURE Recovered spaces for cultural use Industrial heritage, or spaces related to factories, are spaces which have been rediscovered relatively recently... In our current restoration, we're basically having to make a minimal adjustment to adapt the space to current building codes, better insulate the space, change the old climate control systems, but mostly trying to respect the original structure. We work in phases. If we see an opportunity to restore, to modify, anything, we take advantage of it. The Director Plan was created in 2002 or 2003 and since then we've been going in the direction of the Plan. For example, adding sound isolation to spaces built for musicians, with sources of direct sunlight, removing columns to create even more open spaces... If we have a choice we prefer a factory. They provide bigger and more open spaces, and they're easier to convert into a library. But there are other good examples, such as in Barcelona, there's a farmhouse in the neighborhood of Horta, the Masia of Can Mariner, where an amazing renovation has been done of a very complicated space. However, it's been possible to recover a heritage site, a site which is symbolic to an important group of people. When it comes to making decisions about why to place certain projects in certain spaces, features of spaces have weighted more than their symbolic value. When designing an architectural project it's very important to inform the architects of these intentions. For example, industrial sites with exterior walkways between buildings. Whenever you have a building connected to another, as you have with the audiovisual center and the visual arts building, people are able to go outside to smoke, for example. Similarly, a shared library, a collective bar, also shared, etc. There are many shared spaces that can enable these connections and synergies between different professionals and developers sharing the same space. We've tried to prioritize the ability of the spaces to be flexible to the different projects that might be developed. In a space like Fabra i Coats, which we believe should be multidisciplinary, we don't apply the logic of having to save 20% for circus, and 30% for music... We want to let any project, whether it's music, theater, circus, dance, or visual arts, have the potential to develop in that space. The thing that will determine whether some projects are chosen over others will be the quality of the projects, the cultural interest they might have, and also the ability of the projects to fuse and combine. The main challenge is to open it up. That you can see from outside what's happening in the building. Therefore, trying to open it as much as possible. Large windows... making it transparent so it can be seen from outside. Wide open... windows, doors, and whatever is appropriate. But always with our feet on the ground, keeping in mind that we can't do more than what's possible in a medium-sized city like Granollers, and well grounded but with a broad and open vision.