Barcelona Style: a renovation in the Gothic Quarter

Two brothers who grew up in Barcelona entrusted David Kohn Architects with the remodeling of this rather unlivable but unusual apartment in a triangular block in the Gothic Quarter.

A first move consisted in stripping out the many walls that had been created giving more prominence to the 5m high ceilings again.

Since the hydraulic tiles were quite damaged, Mosaics Martí (I didn’t know they were Antonio Gaudi‘s official supplier in the former days) created a new pattern and custom-made design with a lighter and darker red and green which gradate across the floor’s extent. The triangular pattern itself matches the plan’s geometry. If you watch the video below, you’ll see how the color changes from room to room. It’s almost imperceptible and pretty impressive.

The tailor made diamond shaped dining table point towards the buildings’ angle allowing a gathering area that was missing at the older structure.

Bedrooms were created in a way they have the appearance of extra small buildings in a two-storey structure. The high-level library you see on the first picture becomes balconies that connect each bedroom to their en-suite bathrooms. So you have kind of two apartments in one.

Architect David Kohn explains in this video how he transformed the apartment into this award winning project through this exclusive video interview produced by Dezeen.

The two brothers living in Hong Kong and London use the apartment when spending their vacation in Barcelona which probably explains its quite minimalist decoration (for now). I have very much enjoyed watching the video and learning about the transformation process but of course you always love to see what happens in your own city. Let me know what you think about the tessellated surface!