Memory Under a New Skin

Project

Casa Mediterráneo

Status

Competition

Type

Adaptive reuse, Benalúa station

Year

2010

Location

Alicante, Spain

Credits

Marin Marinović
Susana Iñarra
Nenad Katić
Alex Ayala

Casa Mediterráneo is a public institution created to strengthen Spain's relations with the countries of the Mediterranean. The competition asked for its permanent home in the former Benalúa railway station, at the southern gateway to Alicante, a building that once anchored the city's growth and linked it commercially and culturally to Mediterranean ports from Andalusia to France. The new programme of exhibitions, concerts, screenings and events unfolds in constant dialogue with that legacy.

Intervening in an existing building demands understanding its essential identity. The existing station is kept and rehabilitated, structurally and aesthetically, so that its memory is preserved. The railway tracks endure as two simple parallel lines: movement made visible, connection between places, communication between people.