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Refurbishment of Can O’Ryan, Rialto Living, c/San Feliú 3, Palma de Mallorca, undertaken by Estudio Bastidas Architechture.
The wonderful eaves of the façade of Can O’Ryan dating from the XVIII century and of gothic origin have been preserved in their original state. Located in calle San Feliú in Palma, the XIX century Art Nouveau neo-Gothic façade and the remains found during the first stage of the construction revealed a combination of ceramic elements from the Islamic period to columns in the baroque style – objects which were expected to be buried. Despite numerous frameworks which were about to collapse and the ruined state of most rooms, Can O’Ryan began to reveal itself like a jewel found in amongst coffered ceilings sadly destroyed by time. As the work progressed and once the wall that separated the two rooms had been taken down, the arch work was discovered which nowadays visitors can view. A hall in the Baroque style was able to be recovered. This is the area off the very entrance from the street that is such an emblematic feature of Majorcan noble houses. Finally, original architectural elements were salvaged and catalogued, among them doors, floors, windows, arch work, walls, mouldings and glass tiles.

Refurbishment by Estudio Bastidas Architecture. Integration and Architecture. Can O’Ryan, Rialto Living, c/San Feliú 3, Palma de Mallorca

Can O’Ryan stands out as a successful example of where traditional architectural elements were carefully blended with the avant-gard. Old woodwork was salvaged and subsequently reproduced equipping it with climalit windows and rubber seals to ensure water-tightness. In this way, the glass and mirror lift with its panoramic view involved a titanic work of integration designed not to compete with the foyer thereby allowing, first and foremost, an appreciation of its antique features. The natural light intended to illuminate the interior was achieved by reclaiming skylights and taking out recently constructed partition walls which interfered with the brightness of the original space. The refurbishment of the façade’s sandstone walls was achieved using kerakol, an environmentally friendly building material which insulates whilst still allowing the stone to breathe and in this way meeting health codes for buildings destined for occupation. The electronics were installed as a final step in order to hide all the technological work.

Touch is linked to sound given that materials contain sounds, voids and echoes. However, only when you see a construction in all of its complexity, do you become aware of its living acoustics, something mere vision does not give away at first. Imagined images such as pentagrams, structures and compositions where sound emerges from the soles of one's feet, associations that are also projected on the surface, in an arrangement where a musical thread emits the sound of wood, stained glass and reinforced concrete. Architecture as an artistic manifestation where improvisation is the work of nature. Uncontrolled on the surface and all the more disturbing because it is deafening.

Those who have visited Majorca rave about its light when recalling our countryside. Often manipulated by design and structure, it is light that has allowed us to sculpt architecture throughout the ages. Its vagaries influence a design and it is essential to understand them because of their particularly stimulating qualities.

Likewise, Bastidas Architecture designs consist of a constant play of light whose effects enwrap a home in warmth. Its variety and intensity throughout the year require thoughtful consideration at the moment of building. In summer, it is not darkness that offers a solution but rather the miracle of the filter that tones it down when necessary. Without forgetting that in architecture we alter the imagination on purpose.

Le Corbusier defined the link between architecture and light as a game. He said, “Architecture is the masterly correct and magnificent play of masses brought together in light. Our eyes are made to see forms in light; light and shade reveal these forms”. It is light that allowed this architect to bring out the essence of a project. Actually, it was the symbiosis of light and shadow.

The architect also insisted that it was difficult for them to exist apart and, if they do, the construction will dissolve. Understood as an important element, light becomes an instrument with which to radically change architectural character. To do so requires that people understand the nature of this phenomenon in the environment in honour of satisfying demand with natural light - something that not even Edison managed in the past.

Refurbishment of the Ameskar School in the Moroccan Atlas Mountains

Over the past two months Bastidas Architecture has made a great effort to inform and eventually mobilize their clients and collaborators in order to receive the necessary donations to carry out refurbishments at the Ameskar School in the Moroccan Atlas Mountains. Since the budget has been finalized, Sergi Bastidas will leave for Marrakech tomorrow. After a short stay in the city to arrange final preparations, Bastidas will begin the reconstruction work next Friday.

Ameskar is a small village in the Atlas region. The current state of the children’s school requires a speedy refurbishment and the purchase of construction materials that are able to withstand the climatic conditions of the area. The planning of the work and necessary materials has been carried out during the past few weeks. In fact, now is precisely the best time of year to begin the construction work.

Once again, Bastidas Architecture would like to thank all those who contributed to turn this Moroccan project into a pleasant place to study and a healthy place for its inhabitants.

It is worth fighting to defend the topography of a region often represented as an objectionable European attraction of dubious touristic value. And we do not refer to ours but to those who visit us. We believe in an architecture representative of the culture with which we identify ourselves because it makes us who we are. Majorca is nature.

Majorca is sea, valley, cornice, art, mountain, green, dance, bat, wind, capital, chirimía (type of oboe), humidity, torrent, frito (traditional Majorcan dish), patio, garrigue, blue, fig tree, balustrade, passacaglia, littoral zone, lizard, cinema, Pla (centre of Majorca), boulevard, rock, posidonia (seagrass), harbour, pilgrimage, almond tree, palm tree, cormorant, níscalo (mushroom), fire, shearwater (seabird), Raiguer (area of Majorca), slinger, sail, beach club, Arabic, mountain range, temple, water, tumbet (traditional Majorcan dish), Migjorn (area of Majorca), gothic, rose window, traveller, lyrics, moon, Llevant (area of Majorca), carob tree, pig, estate, district, air, village, bike. A pristine symbol from which to be nourished.   

We renew our symbolic coordinates as needs dictate. The island became the destination of millions of tourists in search of an obligatory, because healthy piece of the Mediterranean, a stimulus for endemic responsibility. However, the suggestion is a symbolic issue in which architecture intervenes with the ability to tear down ideals of dubious standing and to vouch for that which has a raison d’etre. It is nothing more than the power of stone in its endeavour to preserve life histories.

A fortunate piece of history, if building expertise allows us to remember the direction revealing a geographical landmark, its religious geometry. Majorca, symbolic coordinates is a small sample of the art of merging line, light and texture on to a plan, whilst preserving and developing an architectural design which, in spite of the rudeness of the craft, enables you to continue to feel the texture of Mediterranean culture, a raison d’etre, with limitations, always depicted in blues and greens.

To hide his shame, Minotaur, son of Pasiphae and the Cretan Bull, was confined to a labyrinth. Built to keep him from escaping, the animal with a human body and a bull’s head fed on youths and maidens. Mythologies are also a labyrinth that is easy to enter but difficult to leave, a tangled weave of stories and counterstories not to mention the rest.The cultural meaning of the labyrinth and its symbolism is extensive and especially rich. In prehistoric times, the labyrinths were drawn on the ground, probably with the aim of setting traps for the spirits or as sketches that were meant to indicate the logic and protocol of ritual dances.

This photograph shows the entrance to a labyrinth redesigned as a landscaping project for one of the estates refurbished by Bastidas Architecture. Built prior to the renovation of the estate, the labyrinth is also associated with architectural mythology, overcoming trials, the road that leads to God or – during the Renaissance – the classical anthropocentric teaching which believes that the human being represents the centre of the labyrinth. Such symbolism often converges into the idea of death or reincarnation with regard tolocus. Death, lost inside the labyrinth, reincarnation in terms of maps of the beyond that allow us to reach the centre and then leave again and be reborn. A remarkable work of landscaping, it is an expression of chaos and cosmos between the beginning and the end.

They say that space should be for the purpose of provoking thought, making us mindful of composition in the place where we work. However, grandeur does not relate to the magnitude of the space we occupy. If that were the case, only a few would have the tools that drive the very act of creating. It is true that the headquarters of the Estudio Bastidas Architecture is located in a huge warehouse, however, this particular feature of the studio is a far cry from a succession of ideas in terms of its square metres. It was chosen for its location in Portixol, the bay, the small boats and the ambiance of the neighbourhood, all ingredients that make up a typically good Palma recipe.

Given its industrial nature, the spaciousness of the warehouse made the three current partitions possible, in this way creating three attached yet completely different warehouses, in terms of use and ambiance, and whose walls, painted in white, do not always reach to the restored ceiling. The condition of the foundry required fundamental modifications at this time, starting with structural reinforcements and a polished cement floor since the floor of the pavilion was simply made of earth. The only source of light was a few small openings which hardly allowed any access and led to rethinking the storage space on the top floor. The corridors were suitable for a terrace which turned a few tricky square metres into a bright and airy space which also provided a U-shaped break area with many generously proportioned windows.