Comments on: Melon District by Gus Wüstemann 2

By: feld

feld — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 14:30:50 +0000

just a general information, valerie, the facade of the building melon district was not designed by wüstemann. his office was responsible for the interior architecture.

By: Valerie

Valerie — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 07:42:27 +0000

“It is not a building but a district”

No, Mr Wüstemann, Poble sec, where the rather ugly, out of context façade of your building (I notice there is no photo of this in the report) has suddenly appeared, is a district, a community. Melon “district” was built at the expense of a historical old building demolished as a result of rampant real estate speculation in this wonderful old city, the architectural history of which some of us fight to protect.

There are several areas in Barcelona, new developments (at the expense, alas, of industrial heritage) where the project would have fitted perfectly, if you like cold, characterless, shall we say, living quarters.

And no, Kim, it is not “very cheap”, at least for Spanish students. Justification for demolition of the old school building was use of the land for a student residence, but the price is barely less, if not more than a normal hotel by the time you pay for sheets and towels (extra) and room cleaning (extra).

Architects really must be held responsible for the social implications of their work, in this case another little attack on the cohesion of a real district community.

I pass the invasive white light of the ground floor bar every day. It´s always empty.

By: Kim

Kim — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 18:43:40 +0000

I think some of you might be missing the point. Melon District is a very cool and very cheap place to live, everything that a student would dream of. Wüstemann has brought stylish high-tech living to a demographic hitherto far removed from it, that is his revolution.

By: alice

alice — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 20:11:26 +0000

i love the appliane of really raw materials, but the constrast between the stained concrete and the ikea like white furniture is too much for me. ikea interior! why?!

By: jed

jed — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 12:36:31 +0000

i love it but…. you never realise how much debris and crap your body and clothing deposit until you have a white floor. i have one in one 2 rooms of my house & never again!… and these white floored rooms are going to be inhabited by students? oh dear.

By: scruces

scruces — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 20:49:15 +0000

The interior spaces seem a bit cramped, but the use of indirect lighting throughout is great. The unfinished concrete is not cheap, but rather a true to testament to Kahn’s brutalist ideology.

By: phillip

phillip — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 17:38:29 +0000

I looked at Melon District when I visited Barcelona. It is truly a revolutionary concept. Wustemann is an architect with imagination and talent who has had the courage to rethink the whole concept of student accommodation. I hope he now does the same thing with hotels.

By: Fling

Fling — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 10:51:47 +0000

As a general comment, this type of post should generally be accompanied by some plans to describe the space in more detail: otherwise it remains on the level of a hip hotel brochure and thus the depth of comment is as superficial.

By: bronxelf

bronxelf — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 01:02:36 +0000

Although I appreciate the thoughtful inclusion of storage into the rooms themselves and think that they’re successful, I find the common areas to be much less so. Instead of looking like an urban modern setting, they evoke a grim, faceless industrialism instead. In a school setting this doesn’t read as chic so much as harsh, cold and draining.

Also the fact that the ceilings have been left untreated in the rooms themselves, doesn’t seem to be a designer feature as much as it seems cheap and that the room is unfinished (and not in a good way.)

By: khalid

khalid — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 00:31:46 +0000

I agree with Diana. Its the “functioning aesthetics” that makes this residence so great, a term coined by the Eameses in their modernist houses.