The Persistence of Memory: Recovery of the Old Cavalry Barracks Conde Ansúrez, Valladolid

Isolated from its surroundings and completely abandoned since 2000, the old Calvary Barracks Conde Ansúrez becomes an airtight object, an inviolable limit with an invasive character with the pedestrians. The project aims to turn it into public space, opening it to the neighborhood where it is immersed and blurring its limits by extending its influence.

Sometimes it is better to take a step back, and pay attention to what the building wants to tell us; its own story and the altered atmosphere of that which has been abandoned to its fate and has become a survivor of the time’s hardness. This is precisely the spirit of the intervention. The project highlights the new character of the place, altered by the time’s passage. The intermediate spaces, light and materiality will be guides to result in a vernacular architecture. The new promenade crosses the buildings, generating intermediate spaces that will hardly be cataloged indoors or outdoors. This route emphasizes the stables’ old spaces, not only its military past. However, the most important change suffered, beyond the use, it’s the scale: the window will take a special role. In urban terms, a large park is projected, capable of integrating the complex into the existing park, while establishing a new functional program for each building; returning this space to the neighborhood. Starting from a rigid and symmetrical urban structure, the biggest challenge was to reverse the spatial organization, creating permeability and new accesses from the district. The wall is knocked down in order to link both parks and the new public equipment, generating a single entity. The focus is put on the Library, located in the old Manège and one stable: two linked buildings, but not physically joined. One, will house the written and digital funds and the children's area. The other, study rooms and a public bathroom. The library is located in the barycenter between three centers that currently exist (design, secondary and primary schools) linking them. The library responds to a new model based on participation, dialogue and creativity. The diaphanous spaces, visual connections and the coexistence of different funds will be vital. The structure was thought from the spatial and economic point of view, optimizing it to the maximum; the whole structure is at the same time furniture: the loft’s large table is a beam, the structural frames are benches and the letters that announce the complex, are at the same time, installations’ spaces