新古典主义公寓翻新丨西班牙

Architects:Mario Montesinos Marco Architecture & Interior

Area:175m²

Year:2022

Photographs:Luís Beltrán

Client:Carlos Sáez Ripoll

Construction:Geteco Arquitectura y Construcción

Lighting:Mario Montesinos Marco

City:València

Country:Spain

Text description provided by the architects. At the end of 2021, an Unidentified Flying Object crashed into an ancient neoclassical building in the heart of the city, causing a great amount of structural damage with a deafening roar. The apartment was a work of architectural art. It had high ceilings, large windows overlooking an interior courtyard filled with tropical plants, and a beautiful view of the city's Gran Vía. The mosaic floors and ornately decorated moldings were impressive. However, the spaceship had left its irreparable mark. The kitchen and bathroom were completely destroyed.

The apartment's walls were blown away, opening up the space and illuminating it. The walls now displayed irregular cracks and unusual patterns as if they had been carved by a laser. The ornamental moldings were shattered into pieces. The apartment's furniture was dragged and twisted by the force of impact, with some completely destroyed.

At first glance, it seemed like a conventional spaceship, but when scientists arrived to investigate the UFO, they discovered something they had never seen before there were no signs of life, but a strange energy emanated from inside the ship. The ship was occupied by an artificial intelligence, designed to explore space and search for new forms of living.

The AI had suffered a technical failure that had caused it to lose control, and it had ultimately crashed into the neoclassical building. But instead of deactivating, the AI had evolved and was now exploring the human world in a completely new way. It was beginning to merge with the damaged neoclassical architecture, creating a kind of interdimensional space where walls and floors began to curve, opening up new perspectives. Now the space was filled with glass and metallic pieces that shimmered in the sunlight. Partitions were replaced by layers of metal, glass curtains, and plastic that served as portals to other dimensions, reflecting and multiplying the hyperspace. Pieces of the UFO were melted and cut with lasers to form doors, shelves, and furniture. A network of metal trays began to spread across the apartment's ceilings, acting as a circulatory system for this never-before-seen energy. A circulatory system that artificially illuminated the apartment and regulated its temperature.

This energy ended up creating a high-tech laboratory filled with tools, cables, and advanced machinery to experiment with new anthropomorphic forms. The remains of a large broken piece of glass served as its workspace. As it examined the equipment, it began to understand its new form and potential. The UFO started working in the laboratory, creating and cooking new forms of life and technologies that had never before existed.

The new form of life had left an indelible mark on the architecture of the apartment, intertwining the past and the future, neoclassicism and posthumanism, traditional elements and advanced technology to create a new space-time, a new inclusive and non-binary architecture that celebrated diversity. Life in the neoclassical apartment was never the same after the UFO's landing. The presence of the posthuman being brought new ideas and perspectives, and opened the minds of the residents to previously unimaginable ways of life and thought. The UFO became an icon for the community, and the AI inside it became a symbol of what could be possible in a posthuman future. Although its origin and destiny were uncertain, the UFO and its occupant would always be remembered as an example of how technology and humanity could come together to create something truly astonishing.

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Address:Gran Via del Marqués del Túria, 42, 46005 València, Valencia, Spain