The Reinterpretation of the Laundry Rooms
Author
Type of work
Julene Larrea Fernández
FDP / Final Degree Project
“The objectives of the project are, to weave the affective network of a group of women, to facilitate growth in the productive sphere and to lighten the burden of care work that is not recognized.”
Project
Heritage is not a neutral element. Historically, the tendency to erase the image of the productive woman has prevailed and the architecture that remembered her has been disappearing. The public washhouse is one of the few protected elements that honors this collective and that has reached us-very diminished, in any case-, grabbing hold of this loophole is an opportunity to confront a trend that has prevailed for centuries.
The symbolic value of the washhouses is very great, so it is especially necessary to establish and carefully follow criteria for reinterpretation that are respectful of memory. The aim of this work has been to create such criteria and transfer them to a concrete example.
By fulfilling the criteria, the work of the collective that has been disregarded throughout history will finally be recognized, and will serve to rectify unfair treatment.
The theory is put into practice in the La Perla laundry in the Abando neighborhood of Bilbao. The proposed intervention only respects the only original element; the façade.
For the updated reading of the laundry has been taken as a starting point the analysis of the weaknesses and shortcomings of our society. Gender violence is one of the biggest slabs we have and contaminates all aspects of our lives.
The project’s program is a tool to address the violence that women suffer. Nowadays, achieving economic freedom is more difficult for a woman (Emakunde data) and, therefore, opening a business or accessing housing is a very tedious path.
The objectives of the project are to weave the affective network of a group of women, to facilitate growth in the productive sphere and to lighten the burden of care work that is not recognized.
The factors of temporality and flexibility have been taken into account, making the free management of the building one of the strong points of the project. In the 1,800m2 that make up the building, interior and exterior spaces are planned for communal living and for growing in the productive sphere.
