endees

Colom 20

Commercial
NameColom 20
LocationPalma de Mallorca

The ecclesiastical confiscations of Mendizábal (1836-1837) turned private property in public property, which led to a major transformation of the urban network of Palma and initiating the desired swelling of the traditional walled city (monastic and laberintic), a new civil society. The regulation of the Plaza de Cort (Court Square) and the opening of the Colom road, allowed the definition of the central axis between the city hall and the Plaza Mayor, orderly and coherent, causing unwanted mismatches at the ends.

The order of this office building on several plots that include the end of the Colom street, Bosseria street and Argentina street, has allowed us to solve the strange and random result of opening the Colom street in relation to the existing outbuildings, very visible from the Plaza Mayor.

Since the six-story building towards Colom street had to be rehabilitatedand and the rest had to be reconstructed in four stories, we extended the composition of the four lower floors of the facade mimetically restored to the other two streets, forming a new building that solved with continuity the end of the block, without renouncing to express the cut that marked the opening of the Colom street on the existing plot, taking advantage of the two emerging stories in the renovated building over the rebuilt part as a tower at the beginning of the street, extending also the composition of the upper two floors, on the old visible dividing wall, generating a vertical milestone in dialogue with the selfsame across the street. As well as its two transparent lower floors, the skin of Colom street turned inward favoring the circulation towards the commercial interior.

In a mimetic form, existing problems are solved objectively. It based its interest in the homogeneity unit from the previous heterogeneity. The real solution of a problem from a new analyzable urban architecture, respecting the pre-existences and the right architectural solutions, sacrificing the most obvious demands of the owners.