Film Centre in Madrid
In recent years, the Matedero site, on which the municipal slaughterhouse once stood, has been converted into a campus for creative culture. To transform one section into a film centre, the architects implemented a concept that involved an interplay of light and dark internally. The complex, consisting of a number of linked buildings, contains two projection halls, film and TV studios with offices, a bar and a courtyard for open-air showings as well as a film archive. To retain the appearance of the existing buildings with their stone facades and brick banding and to integrate these in the new design, numerous repairs were carried out, the foundations were reinforced with piles, steel inlays were placed in the walls to prevent cracking and new concrete floors were inserted. A trelliswork of plastic tubes over a framing of steel rods was used to flank the narrow staircase and the space above the archive, as well as cladding the walls and ceilings of the cinema halls like huge baskets.
