Think tank: in Barcelona, an extraordinary industrial relic from the nineteenth century has been imaginatively and sensitively transformed into a new university library. (Interior Design).

Dating from 1990, Barcelona's University Pompeu Fabra is a relative newcomer to the city's educational pantheon, yet today it is considered one of the most prestigious universities in Spain. With a student population of around seven thousand, it offers a range of graduate courses, along with doctoral, postgraduate and masters degrees. Emphasizing the role of a university as part of society, Pompeu Fabra has a distinctly urban character unlike most new campuses which tend to be exiled to the periphery. Installed in a series of remodelled buildings of diverse historical origin, the various faculties are clustered around la Ciutadella, near the city zoo and Olympic Village on the eastern edge of the Cerda grid. Projects such as MBM's imaginative remodelling of the Roger de Lluria barracks (AR November 2001) into lecture halls and seminar rooms are typical of the ongoing development programme which seeks to invigorate and sustain the public realm, through a process of historical consolidation and repair.

This latest project by the young Barcelona-based partnership of Lluis Clotet and lgnacio Paricio Ansuategui involves the refurbishment and conversion of the Diposit de les Aigues into a new university library. Acquired by Pompeu Fabrain the mid 1980s, the building was originally a water reservoir, designed by Josep Fontser's and Josep Comet in 1874 as part of a lake and cascade complex sited at Parc de la Ciutadella. An outstanding example of nineteenth-century industrial architecture, the building's robust brick construction echoes the massive Roman engineering of the Mirabilis Pool in Naples, an enormous reservoir of drinking water built for the Roman fleet during the reign of Augustus.

Since it ceased to operate as a reservoir, the Diposit has undergone many different incarnations--a World's Fair pavilion, archive, fire station, film set and old people's home. This most recent use involved the construction of internal partition walls, which Clotet and Paricio have removed as part of their intention to preserve the original structure and enhance the dramatic quality of the internal spaces. The urge to impinge as little as possible on the historic fabric strongly underscores the entire project.

The building's new function responds both to the drama and practical constraints of the existing structural geometry.

The rooftop water tank is supported by a dense grid of Im thick parallel brick walls penetrated by arches to create a series of 4m wide vaults. Around the perimeter, massive brick buttresses provide lateral restraint. The resulting interior is a cavernous, cathedral-like volume made up of a rhythmic labyrinth of vaults. This heroically scaled space has been sensitively transformed into a reading room and library, the rows of desks and book stacks slotted with precise economy into the regimented structural grid. Subsequent interventions have been stripped out--for instance, the existing upper floor has been cut back to form a reading balcony around the perimeter, giving views out over the scholars toiling below. A modular precast concrete structure, independent from the brickwork, permitted the installation of a raised floor. All the necessary building services (wiring, plumbing, furniture) were installed without disturbing the original structure.

Despite the monumental character of the space, the architects have managed to create many different sorts of work and study areas, ranging from intimate, individual enclaves, to communal spaces dwarfed by the towering structure and vast vaulted vistas. The most ingenious new interventions are the skylights on the roofs tank. Each consists of an inverted mirror-glass pyramid set in a clear glass casing which funnels sunlight reflected off the water into the deep plan of the reading room below. Other interventions are more prosaic, bringing the nineteenth-century structure in line with current planning and seismological legislation. Overall, the architects have accomplished the often difficult task of injecting new life into a distinguished historic building with a mixture of rigour and sensuality. Pompeu Fabra has another happily revitalized relic.

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Clotet Paricio I Associats, Barcelona

Photographs

Fredy Massad