Study trip in Madrid
Palacio Real de Madrid © EPFL / LAST
Professor Emmanuel Rey's studio class went on a study trip to Madrid. This extra-mural teaching activity was an opportunity for the students to visit various modern and contemporary operations of housing, activity building and public space coming into close resonance with the issues explored within the framework of the LIVING PERIPHERY design studio.
Architectural design is expected to play an important part in the search for alternatives to reorient urban development through densification strategies. By an approach at different scales, LAST's studio aims precisely at analyzing, exploring and experimenting specific issues to this contribution of architecture to the sustainability of urban areas.
The study trip to the city of Madrid was conceived in this spirit, with the objective to allow the students to enhance their reference palette. It was thus the opportunity to visit many emblematic realizations, notably the Plaza Mayor (1580, 1854), the Casa de las Flores by Zuazo (1932), museums such as the Royal Collections by Mansilla + Tunon (2015), the CaixaForum by Herzog & De Meuron (2008), The Reina Sofia by Jean Nouvel (2005), the urban renewal of the Madrid Rio (2011) led by West 8, the renovation of the Matadero district (2012), the Atocha Station by Rafael Moneo (1984 and 2010) or housing operations of the peripheral neighborhoods designed by Foreign Office Architects (2007) and Thom Mayne (2006).
A bike ride through the city with the architect Werner Durrer and a guided visit of a new housing area called Caledonian Somosaguas recently achieved by Marcio Kogan from Studio MK27 were also on the program.The study trip was also enriched by an official welcome of the LAST at the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid (ETSAM), through a meeting with Prof. Manuel Blanco, director of the institution, and a lecture of Prof. Andrés Canovas on collective housing in Madrid.
These multiple approaches helped to put into perspective issues of conceptual coherence, built morphology, spatiality, typology and expression with broader themes related to the urban mutation processes, which the majority of European metropolis have to face today.