Arnau Theatre 1738

The Arnau Theater is located in the transition between the Raval and the Paral·lel, occupying the space that was freed up with the demolition of the old Barcelona wall. The side facades are very basic, flat, of absolute austerity… an honest construction and not at all representative; on the contrary, the main facade – the one on Paral·lel – wants to highlight and represent that it is a theater.

It is the last Shack Theater in the city and it is in a very bad state, so it is necessary to intervene but understanding that it represents a legacy of historical interest that shoult not be lost.

One of the most defining features of a Shack Teatre is the typology of a three-body nave. A main body and two lateral ones. A very light structure, almost industrial, similar to the one on markets with a significant volume and a very clear directionality. A very pragmatic and slim constructive typology that is rare in the theatrical field. Superimposed on the rationality of the nave, the horseshoe-shaped boxes appear, with a much more theatrical geometry. What best expresses this complexity between nave and horseshoe is the wooden structure.

We propose to strip the skeleton to be able to identify the essence of the theater: a porticoed system of three naves, with very slender pillars crossing a denser and more complex framework, with very expressive geometries that made up the beams and cross-beams of the slabs of the boxes. The curved trusses and the wooden floor covering complete this fragile but exceptional system to be preserved.

Selectively demolish everything possible until leaving only the facade, the stage opening, the horseshoe rail and the entire wooden structure (pillars, slabs, facade frames…). Leave the wooden skeleton, clean it up, add metal connectors, reinforcements and concrete those spaces between wood necessary to guarantee the stability of the structure.

The concrete is amorphous and adapts -on site- to the shape of the pre-existence, to the small irregularities and imperfections of the original structure. It reaches where other preformed materials could not.

The wood – like a fossil – is fixed between mineral matter, respecting its form, its history and all its specificity and expressiveness but improving its structural capacity. The current wooden section could not withstand the overloads of use or the fire resistance required by the regulations, but it can serve us as lost formwork.

Some parts of the original wooden skeleton are left unfilled so that double spaces appear through the framework of the old structure – as if it were a spider’s web – making explicit the fragility of the original theater. The Hall and the audience are the spaces where it is easier to recognize these pre-existences.

The old cafe will be demolished and in its place will be built a new space more open to the city: the Athenaeum. It will be built with a similar typology and construction system, as if it were a small shack theatre. It reproduces a gesture similar to that of the horseshoe but more elongated and directed towards the street, where a new large stage opening on the facade turns the square into a stage – and vice versa. The large opening – which takes as reference the mouth of the theater – is the new icon of the building, a single simple gesture that tells us what happens inside the Athenaeum but also connects us emotionally with the theater and with the theatrical action.

To be able to expand the program, two basement floors are built where the services, dressing rooms, rehearsal room, warehouses and the stage workshop are located. To grow from below, the building is underpinned, that is, it is built from above and then the soils are emptied. This underpining with micropiles makes it possible to trace the main traces of the structure of the Arnau, building – below ground – a symmetry of the spaces that we have above ground. When the soils are emptied, the curtains of micropiles appear – as if they were pre-existences – slender structures in the form of a metal framework that we fill with concrete in the same way as we operate with the pre-existences of wood in the theatre.

The building uses the contact with the ground and the micropiles to stabilize the temperature of the walls and the air that circulates there, which goes up by stratification crossing the room until it exits through the roof and the old skylight which will be transformed into a natural outlet of the air at the same time as a great acoustic muffler. When it is necessary to ventilate or dissipate internal heat naturally, the building may be thermally open but at the same time acoustically closed.