Mesura restores never-before-seen Casa Batlló rooms in dialogue with Gaudí

Local studio Mesura has transformed a floor of architect Antoni Gaudí's Casa Batlló in Barcelona, Spain, into a contemporary art gallery with an undulating metal ceiling that references the Mediterranean Sea.

The art space, named Casa Batlló Contemporary, is located on the second floor of the museum in central Barcelona.

This floor previously housed apartments and then a conservation workshop, and is now open to the public for the first time.

Barcelona-based Mesura was asked to restore and redesign the space to make it suitable for art displays.

"It was an honour that they thought of a Catalan architect from Barcelona, and they thought that we were the best partners; we feel really thankful for that," Mesura co-founder Carlos Dimas told Dezeen.

"For a Catalan architect, it means a lot to work on a Gaudí project."

Mesura drew on Gaudí's "attitude" when approaching the restoration, Dimas said.

"Our approach was to try to have this dialogue without mimicking him, but not making a big contrast with the language, atmosphere, colour palettes and so on," he explained.

There were a number of challenges for the studio as it approached the project, the first of which was how to turn a residential apartment into an exhibition space.

"The second challenge was how you dialogue with Gaudí – as an architect, that is quite complex," Dimas explained.

"The third challenge was that [the client] wanted to exhibit digital art performance for half of the year, with all the mechanical, engineering and plumbing (MEP) services that need to pass through the building," he continued.

"The final one was that they wanted something with attitude, something bold with character that was really bringing something new to Casa Batlló."

After pondering how to bring character to a space that also needs to function as a white box for art installation, Dimas and his colleagues concluded that they could do so by focusing on the floors and ceiling.

While much of the 230-square-metre floor was given a light-touch restoration, Mesura created a striking ceiling installation in one of the rooms.

The undulating stainless-steel installation, which also serves to hide cables and other technical functions, nods to two specific aspects of Gaudí's designs – their organic shapes and innovative construction.

"We wanted to bring a little bit of this natural morphology that Gaudí used," Dimas said.

"The other innovation was that we used an incremental forming technology that has never been used in interior design or architecture," he continued. "It's a robot that, through compression, makes 3D geometries for fast prototyping and innovation in the automotive industry."

Mesura experimented with the technique, bending the material to try to find the stage just before the breaking point to create its wavy shape.

This references the exterior of Casa Batlló, which Gaudí designed to resemble a dragon, and it also features a pattern resembling rings spreading on the ocean.

"Gaudí was very deeply inspired by nature, not only in his organic, geometrical shapes, but he also felt there was a kind of mystery behind it – if you see the Casa Batlló facade, it looks like an animal from the deep ocean, something mystical and magical," Dimas explained.

"So we tried to bring in the Mediterranean Sea, which was quite important in Gaudí's presence and his career, with this image of the sea breaking under a drop of water."

Though the floor, which will be pale green, hasn't yet been installed in Casa Batlló, this too will nod to the existing building in its use of colour.

"We bring a colour that maybe hasn't been noticed that much – the green colour that you find on the facade," Dimas said. "The same tone was introduced on the flooring to give it a little bit of character."

While the flooring will be mainly microcement, it will also feature a pattern made from reused ceramic and terracotta salvaged from the old apartment previously located on this level.

Dimas believes that Gaudí would have approved of the project and of the spirit in which it was made.

"Gaudí has always been a researcher and an innovator; he tried to get the latest technology and the latest material," Dimas explained.

"He had this prototyping system of trying to see where the structure was breaking out, trying to design it until the breaking point, and always innovating with shapes, geometries and materials," he continued. "So it was absolutely a Gaudían attitude that inspired us on the project."

The first exhibition in the contemporary art space is Beyond the Facade, an installation by the Matt Clark-led studio United Visual Artists. The artist also created a light show for its facade.

Casa Batlló has previously collaborated with Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, who designed a sculptural mesh curtain for a new staircase inside the historic building.

Another Gaudí-designed building in Barcelona is also currently in the spotlight, as the Sagrada Familia has become the tallest church in the world. This year marks a hundred years since the architect passed away.

The photography is by Claudia Mariño, courtesy of Casa Batlló, unless otherwise stated.

Beyond the Facade is on until 17 May at Casa Batlló. See Dezeen Events Guide for information about other architecture and design events taking place around the world.

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