While the present is under construction,
the past and the future take new forms. Every single moment, each new action,
enables a revision of what has been done, and also lends a new profile to what
is about be done, continuously modifying the collective memory as well as the
projects to come. In this changing scenario, with a past and a future in
constant construction, probability becomes the only approximation to certainty,
the only mechanism to approach reality.
In the heart of this transformation,
architecture widens its vision, regarding the definition of space as only a
small part of its assignment: the construction of artificial environments, of
the atmosphere in which the actions of mankind unfold. This is a kind of
mobilization of the world in which the main tool is the negotiation between the
parts, and the aim is the creation of scenarios of wills that will encourage
collective identity.
Thus, the proposal for the Concello of Lalín
oscillates between precision and probability, building an antimonumental
structure in which -as in the clouds- each one can guess personal references in
the changing shapes. Therefore, the collective identification is the result of
the diversity of interpretations: a technological Celtic village, some colored
clouds, a civic palimpsest, a patterned fabric, etc.
The proposal is an open structure, almost a
mathematical field, that establishes a local behavioural system in dialogue
with the environment, choosing the dispersed over the compact, the transparent
over the opaque and the diffuse against the limited; a social and architectural
structure without hierarchies.
All in all, this is a matter of confronting what we think we are with
what surrounds us, so that, what becomes most important is the capacity to
multiply, to intensify and to diversify the relationships between humans and
non-humans. In other words, it is a matter of realizing that we are nothing
less -but also nothing more- than a small part of a world that turns endlessly,
tirelessly...
TECHNICAL DATA. Location: Lalín, Pontevedra, Spain. Architects:
Luis M. Mansilla and Emilio Tuñón. Client: Lalín Town Hall. Collaborators
(competition): Andrés Regueiro, Luis Díaz-Mauriño, Carlos Martínez de Albornoz,
Anna Partenheimer, María Langarita, Asa Nakano. Collaborators (design project): Andrés Regueiro, Matilde Peralta,
María Langarita, Ana del Arenal, Asa Nakano, Bárbara Silva. Structural
engineer: Alfonso Gómez Gaite. Collaborators (construction): Andrés Regueiro, Sara
Murado, Carlos Brage, Briony Roberts, Rubén Arend, Nuria Martínez Salas, Coco
Castillón, Elke Gmyrek, Carlos Cerezo. Structural
engineers: Alfonso Gómez Gaite. Mechanical engineers: Quicler-López Ingenieros.
Quantity Surveyor/Technical Architect: Sancho Páramo. Competition: November
2004. Design project: July 2005. Work completion: February 2011. Built area: 7,200 m2. General contractor: FCC Construcción. Photographer: Luis Asín.
