Remodeling and Rethinking White Towers / STUDIO.NOJU

Remodeling and Rethinking White Towers / STUDIO.NOJU

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Text description provided by the architects. An intervention in a Torres Blancas apartment implies a dialogue with the original ideas of its architect Francisco Javier Sainz de Oiza, the state of its built elements, and the value of preservation in its most contemporary narrative. Antonio Mora and Eduardo Tazón, founding architects of STUDIO.NOJU came across the opportunity to intervene in a 400 square meter duplex, the largest unit of the building which had been highly altered in the past 50 years of its history. With this opportunity to intervene in a heritage building the architects wanted to demonstrate their personal take on how to work on renovation projects in architecture with degrees of protection.

The proposal that STUDIO.NOJU has made moves away from the more nostalgic vision of the preservation of the originally built state and is completely rooted in the ideas embedded in Oíza’s project, not only of the interior of the apartment unit but of the building as a whole. The renovation speaks of the building’s past with references to original formal gestures, such as the interior of the house that recovers its sinuous curves that had been erased, but at the same time adapting its new formal language to the contemporary needs of its inhabitants.

“The socio-political context of the time in which Torres Blancas was built is far from today. We must give these protected architectures the opportunity to evolve and adapt to the new times and needs of their new inhabitants. Not allowing their evolution on the part of the authorities who impose an over-protectionism condemns these works to a living death” emphasize Antonio Mora.

“It was important for the design to have a contemporary translation of these ideas, and not to imbue the existing elements in formaldehyde. For us, the best form of preservation is to pay homage to those ideas and not to the elements with which they were built more than 50 years ago.” Eduardo Tazón points out

In addition to restoring the original spatiality characterized by its sinuous curves that had been erased in successive renovations, the objective of the renovation focused on recovering the exterior space of the house that had also been eliminated. At the time these apartments were sold as “Villas in the sky” but little remained of the original terraces that initially were the heart of the house.

STUDIO.NOJU with its intervention recovered all the lost outdoor space and returned the character of a patio-house to the unit by adding a series of benches, planters, and a fountain, the original design of the studio for which they use a striking green glazed mosaic that gives the space great energy and vitality. From references to the materials used, the morphology of the structural plant, the colors, and the filtered light, the vast majority of the project decisions take the original project as a starting point but always start from the idea they wanted to convey, not the way it was done.