Image credits: Miguel de Guzman, courtesy of the architects.

Architects Olga Sanina and Marcelo Dantas won the international competition for the design of the Pavilion of the Ayuntamento de Madrid with a proposal titled La Casa de Librio (The Book House), built for this year’s edition of the Madrid Book Fair.
Walking through pages - such were the words used by blogger Judit Bellostes to describe this object, like a book built with pages, vertical sections used to generate an internal cavity of organic topography.


Image credits: Noriko Ambe.



Conceptual design.

In this project, the book became the design motif of an ephemeral installation.

This intention lead us to the work of Noriko Ambe, whose creations extensively developed this theme, manipulating the book as an object in search of new relations of space, scale, rhythm and texture. The architectural quality of her work was of special interest and influence over our design process.
Of her work we retain above all the confrontation of two rules and opposite systems, intertwined in the same object to create a whole of cohesive expression. It’s that unity that we seek in our intervention. A volumetric and spatial whole built of light and shadow, with flattened surfaces and rhythmic textures.

And so we start making other experiments… the constructive system brought to pure simplicity, the materiality and scale close to the ethereal, the bright internal light, filtered by the same surfaces that appeal to touch on the outside and balance with the wind, and the shadows they project.

The sequence of planes originates a volume of dynamic expression, between opacity and transparency, filtering the light to create a sheltered space, like a small hideout. The external regularity contrasts with the nature of the small auditorium within, where life appears fluid and continuous. Simple as a book, surprising and beautiful like the mysteries they enfold.



Architecture: Olga Sanina, Marcelo Dantas.
Photography: Miguel de Guzman.