Proyects + Constructed Work

Usera Memory
+ PUBLIC LIBRARY, USERA. MADRID +

The kind of library wished in Usera is not just a large room, either a great warehouse or a book container: it is a sum of many services, which tend to be increasingly external every day.

How can we make such a building meaningful, “institutional”? How can we be sure it fulfils its real objective of being a “public” building? Having, as it does, a privileged position with magnificent views over west Madrid, close to the Municipal Government Building seems difficult to ignore the temptations of reducing the grade of the intervention by using the terrain’s unevenness opting for terraced or semi-buried solutions. Such arrangement can neither to the views or the public character, not even to the equilibrium of the whole plot, which would tend to continue to be polarized by the Municipal Government Building, discouraging the investment, both political and economic, that the library’s construction is supposed to be.

Then, what can be the image and organization of a contemporary library? How to get the best terrain use taking all the advantage of its topographical qualities? These are the two questions that we try to give a clear and effective answer, wanting to do it with parsimony, with a special emotional appetite that simple things produces.

Usera Card
PUBLIC LIBRARY, USERA
MADRID. 1995-2002
Restricted Contest as invitation for First Prize
Customer: Govermnet of Madrid
Architects: Iñaki Ábalos , Juan Herreros, Ángel Jaramillo
Collaborators: Rocío Rein, Pablo Puertas, Miguel Kreisler
Estructure: José Manuel Sierra, Juan Gómez
Installations: José María Cruz, Pedro José Blanco
Financial Study: Juan José Núñez
Scale Models: Miguel Kreisler, José Alcoceba, Jorge Queipo
Artist Collaborator: Peter Halley
Equipment and Furniture: Pablo Puertas
Direction and supervision of works: Abalos&Herreros, Mé Dolores Miñarro
Foreman: José Torras