ARCHITECTURE AND PARTICIPATION IN SOCIAL MOVEMENT'S ARK I recently visited the city 'of Madrid and fascinated by the beauty of the place I have penetrated to the center between the lanes of the discovery of urban squares and details unknown to me, after having visited the Atocha station, sadly etched in the collective memory because 'recently' was the grim scenario of one of the most 'heinous terrorist attacks in the Islamic land of Spain, I visited the Reina Sofia Museum, recently enlarged by the architect Jean Nouvel, the museum came out I thought I'd visit the Prado Museum, famous because it is currently 'the biggest container of English art world and beyond, I decide to head for the Prado and as I usually prefer to go into the alleys of the neighborhood rather than follow the Paseo del Prado, a wide thoroughfare with heavy traffic passing in front of the museum.
In a few minutes before me opens a whole new and unusual scenario: a square with an old factory in the middle of the nineteenth century a clear matrix. I still know and understand the structure and 'enclosed by a fence of the yard; known immediately that this is not just a site but a work in progress too strong to remain anonymous. The factory appears to be suspended above the ground, and 'was literally cut to the base and suspended, to create an underlying connective space, a sort of square-atrium.
I stop to talk to a resident of the square, which is curious to see me photograph the structure, I find that it is a old factory once used to glass and then went to ruin because of a huge fire that has devoured the elegant roof trusses made of metal, very resistant to normal operating conditions but at high labilissime temperature.Il through asking me whether the structure is to my liking ...... suggesting that it is the bone of contention between the villagers and the administration in Madrid. Tell the gentleman that I am a Italian architect who was fascinated by this action because 'it is an intervention that takes account of the most' stringent criteria imposed by the restoration and classic at the same time we are faced with a work of architecture and extremely strong innovativa.La factory, once a place of work, had been transformed into a cultural center ..... for the manufacture and dissemination of ideas, art forms and culture. The structure consists of the sun outer walls survived the fire, had been transformed into an object-container of high technology and culture. Suspended from the ground and completed at the summit 'of glazed structures, shielded by panels of Cor-Ten steel, arabesque motifs reproducing, reproducing the same warm colors of the curtain wall of the original building.
Looking at the bottom of the building immediately intuit the same array architecture already seen at the Forum in Barcelona and I realize that they are facing one of the last works, yet unpublished architects Herzog & de Meuron. Much more 'curious to me before I decide to work around the yard at 360 ° for a total perception of the work, at one point known that the fence construction and 'enriched by strange signs. I go over and see that it is not required by law posters on safety at construction sites, but messages of protest from some citizens opposed to the construction site.
The Cartel reported wrote: "es por que hoy it come to cover evenings arquitecto 'hasta la muerte "...... a sort of warning to the author of this mess! And I 'came immediately to think about the importance of involving the collectivity' in the process of urban transformation, we can not 'think out of choices to keep planning the very people who will have to live directly those spaces. It 'important to involve citizenship, making them aware of what are the choices, motivations and results to be obtained with a given intervention on an urban scale, in view of the fact that they will be the beneficiaries but also the financing of the operation. So I think that it is necessary to begin forms of social involvement that are able to make people perceive the goodness 'of the intervention and the need' of a collective involvement for the success of the work.
Someone said that the work of architecture for meta 'on the architect and half' due to the favorable conditions creategli illuminated by a customer!
The building is called the Caixa Forum and it 'was published by Casabella the number 765 is currently on newsstands.
Arch.Daniele Todd
Ark's-Cultural Association ® Workgroup ®
Ark's-
exhibition pavilion English 
Pavilion English exhibition 
exhibition pavilion English 
Bridge Pavilion by Zaha Hadid 
