Lys Villalba . Lluís Alexandre Casanovas . photos: © José Hevia
Un cuarto en llamas (A room on fire) is a space for dialogue and cultural creation aimed at a young audience interested in the arts -especially music, poetry, and utterance in general-. The project is located in a Multipurpose Room at the former military barracks of Conde Duque. It is an initiative of the Masquepalabras Collective, which manages it in collaboration with an assembly of young people, who design an autonomous and independent program. “Un cuarto en llamas” hosts a variety of cultural creation activities including concerts, conferences, workshops, performances, poetry readings, theater, videoart, debates, dance, streamings, etc.
The Multipurpose Room at Conde Duque is an open space with a basilica-like floor plan defined by three bays of granite columns, delimited by brick walls. As it is a listed building, all interventions on the pre-existing architecture are limited, prohibiting any alteration of the original elements or the mounting of pieces by means of holes or chemical adhesives.
How to convert the solemn materiality of this room into a space for poetic and artistic creation, how to transform its rigid configuration into a place under permanent construction that functions as a laboratory for experimentation and a community of communities, and how to do so without altering the building? To respond to these considerations, the project develops two complementary strategies: “Touchless design,” and “Furniture Feat.” Continue reading Villalba . Casanovas
