249_Andrea Molina: ONCE UPON A TIME IN ALCORCÓN
ANDREA MOLINA
My name is Andrea Molina, I’m a recent graduated Architect from Madrid.
I have studied in Madrid Architecture School (ETSAM) and I did my graduation project
with architects Lina Toro and Juan Herreros, which led me to “graduate with honours” this year.
I’m currently working at Juan Herreros’ studio (EstudioHerreros, Madrid) in the
building process of the New Munch Museum in Oslo, Norway.
ONCE UPON A TIME IN ALCORCON
The name of my project is ONCE UPON A TIME IN ALCORCÓN, cause its main purpose is to
transform an obsolete industrial state into an advanced neighbourhood recalling the history of the place through the proposed architectural interventions in its public space.
The history of our cities is built into their architecture, an architecture which functions as the mute record of the events which have marked the urban space, which have named streets, opened squares, and raised towers and monuments. Taken together, these discrete fragments generate a psychological map of our cities, and give them their identity.
In the Alcorcón industrial estate, however, events have occurred which haven’t been captured in its architecture or its urban space. If these events have transcended architecture, though, they are still attested to by the industrial objects which played such crucial roles in them, and remain present in the memory of the locals.
The memory of the clubs of Costa Polvoranca, the silos where toxic rapeseed oil was stored in the 80s, the warehouse storing the chairs used in the Gürtel affair, the crane which build the estate, the concrete factory, the pylons for an electricity which will no longer need to be transported by cables, and the buildings and machinery abandoned by the city council. All of these elements have fused together to give space for the key programs of the new neighbourhood which, with a new infrastructure, connects with the city and with the park which gives it its name.
“They say that space has memory, I wanted to give it a voice as well.”
