After a long period of renovation, Casa Batlló presents Casa Batlló 10D Experience, its new immersive tour, pioneering and unique in the world. Among the long list of novelties is the new vertical communication core designed by Kengo Kuma, where Kriskadecor’s aluminum links come into action.
If Casa Batlló is a tribute to the light of the Mediterranean, Kengo Kuma & associates ‘ project is a tribute to Antoni Gaudí’s use of light in the modernist building. In the words of the Japanese architect himself, “it travels from the bright sky of the roof to the dark depths of the coal bunkers”. His intervention speaks of this, but in an abstract way, free of the colors of the house, its materials and its historical dimension.
164,000 meters of chain dress the atrium, the new staircase linking the eight floors and the coal bunkers. According to Kengo Kuma, “we have imagined this space dressed in curtains of aluminum links, which with their meticulous materiality trap the light, as if they were fishing nets, showing it to us in all its forms: shines, silhouettes, shadows…. In this way, omitting the use of any other material, and with these curtains erasing the presence of this blind box and its staircase, we manage to speak of light and only of light”.
The lighter shades of aluminum are found at the beginning of the tour, on the roof, and gradually darken until they reach the black that dresses the space of the old coal bunkers in the basement. With this gradation of light, which replicates the use of color in the courtyard, a story is woven without words that accompanies us throughout the tour. We start from the roof to end up in the basements; from the sky to the earth, from light to shadow… and all this explained only with light, as if it were a grammar of the house itself.
The project also posed the challenge of finding a sound-neutralizing solution. To this end, the development and innovation department created innovative acoustic panels that cover the ceiling above the chains and successfully counteract the sound.
Below you can consult what has been published in different media:
Articles:
- Kengo Kuma designs sculptural metal-mesh curtain for Gaudí’s Casa Batlló, Dezeen.
- Kengo Kuma installs shimmering chain-clad staircase inside gaudí’s Casa Batlló, DesignBoom.
- Kriskadecor and Kengo Kuma for Casa Batlló, Archiproducts.
- Kengo Kuma adds chain clad staircase to Gaudí’s Casa Batlló, Archello.
- Intervention in the Casa Batlló in Barcelona, Arquitectura Viva.
- By the grace of Gaudí: the reinvention of Barcelona’s Casa Batlló, Financial Times.
- More technology and edible electric flowers to reopen Casa Batlló, El País.
Videos:
- Casa Batlló 10D EXPERIENCE, Casa Batlló.
- Casa Batlló is again immersed in Gaudí’s world through a 10D experience, TV3
- Casa Batlló presents ’10D Experience’, a multisensory journey through Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality and Machine Learning, El Periódico.
- Casa Batlló presents ’10D Experience’, an immersive journey into the mind of Gaudí, Time Out Barcelona.
Photos courtesy of Casa Batlló.
