A museum’s rooftop terrace brings the beach to Madrid
Pablo Limón Design Office has designed the new summer terrace for the contemporary art museum La Casa Encendida in Madrid.
“The goal of the project was to design a rooftop terrace where visitors would feel as though they were closer to the Beach than they actually are in Madrid.” The nature of the location also had to be taken into consideration. La Casa Encendida is a contemporary art museum that focuses on emerging artists and experimentation.
La Casa Encendida’s summer terrace aims to reinvent the beach bar concept using a language that is similar to that of other cultural spaces where interaction with the visitor is the foundation for everything, but which plays with curiosity, beauty, and decontextualization.
The main elements designed were the bar, a graphic architectural element made of white matte metal cross-sections, covered with colored stone-filled polycarbonate. When the structure is assembled, these elements create a graphic set.
The tables continue with contrasting materials, incorporating a third into set. Their base is composed of colored metal cross-sections and the top is made of plywood. Their structure was inspired by scaffolding, seeking to contrast the urban setting with the beach.
The mural is painted on different planes and depths, creating an optical illusion. When visitors enter the space, they see everything on the same plane, but when they move, the mural acquires depth and different shapes are revealed.
The mural creates harmony, organizes the space, defines it, and decontextualizes it from the pronounced aesthetics of the rest of the museum.
The chairs and stools are everyday objects that lack presence in their regular use; summer-related objects that are reused in a space where they acquire significance because of their decontextualization and the way they complement the rest of the elements.
