The “Casa del Condestable” is a building listed as an Asset of Cultural Interest. It was built from 1548 by Luis de Beaumont, 4th Count of Lerín and Constable of the Kingdom of Navarre. For centuries it belonged to the House of Alba and at one time was a bishop’s residence. In the late nineteenth century it was the object of numerous reforms with the purpose of fitting it out for rental dwellings, shops and artisan workshops. The facades were also modified according to the eclectic taste of the time, replacing the corner balcony by a chamfered corner with lookouts. In the year 2000, in a state of ruin, it was acquired by the City Hall to prevent it being demolished and it was then decided to refurbish it for use as a civic centre in the Old Town of Pamplona.
The plan of the building is typically Renaissance, with a hallway in the main façade that leads to the principal rectangular courtyard formed from octagonal stone columns, with the staircase leading to the first floor situated on an angle, and a second floor of lesser height for servants’ quarters and directly connected to the main rooms via small internal staircases. The habitual back garden was here reduced to a small light well, as it was constrained by the adjacent constructions.
The project chooses to recover as much as possible of the character of the mansion palace in its foundational state, without however having to give up the necessary installations to allow it to function. The new elements, though easily recognisable, do not seek contrast but continuity from what was built before, with the natural appearance with which interventions on buildings have historically succeeded each other. The project limits itself to assigning uses to the most suitable available spaces, in the conviction that the new functions will merely represent another episode in its history.
The main courtyard is the piece that required and accepted the greatest intervention. The reconstruction of the courtyard in its original configuration (open and on two heights) entailed functional problems of layout and exposure to the elements in a climate such as Pamplona’s. Below it, a new basement floor has been built for storage and installations. The cloister circulation on the second floor has been expanded: the courtyard thus reinforces its vocation as a central relations and communications space in the building and gains in layout clarity; the second floor adopts its new public character, with a new access staircase in the west centreline. The diaphanous nature of the interior facades gives visual importance to the horizontal structure of the galleries, which are also made from wood, with beams placed closely together that bring texture to these planes and disguise the beam filling of the installations. The roof is resolved with large-edged laminated wooden girders that rest on the internal walls to prevent overloading the stone columns. The fully contemporary horizontal space of the new cloister gallery on the second floor overlooks and is opposed to the backdrop of the vertical courtyard space, which maintains its original two-floor proportion.
The resolution of all the circulation and service needs within the enclosure of the two courtyards has permitted preserving the aesthetic and formal unity of the perimeter rooms, avoiding any difficult partitioning at the meeting points with the guttering. In specific spots such as the accesses to the new classrooms located in the northern house, distribution and storage vestibules have been introduced as wooden units that provide a continuity of vision of the guttering. The hall situated on the western side of the courtyard, next to the party wall, is used as an assembly hall, excavating a sloping grandstand that allows the stage to gain height and connects it with the original level of the floor of an existing medieval structure featuring three large pointed arches on the lower floor of the north house.
Interview and translation by Studio Banana TV.
Interview realised with the sponsorship of ASCER.
