Documentary Series Shadows Flores & Prats Architects

Most architects are generally content to stay behind the scenes, allowing their works to accept the applause. But Ricardo Flores and Eva Prats are indeed the stars of Scale 1:5, a documentary series that follows the Flores & Prats Architects partners as they complete the Sala Beckett Theatre and International Drama Center in Barcelona.

Poster for Scale 1:5, Patricia Tamayo and Albert Badia’s documentary series produced by 15-L Films. Photography courtesy of 15-L Films.

Directed by Patrícia Tamayo and Albert Badia for 15-L Films, the five-part series of 10-minute films retraces the reclamation of the 1920's space, which the firm found in ruins after numerous renovations, into a cultural hub with newfound connection to the surrounding Sant Martí neighborhood.

Still image from Scale 1:5. Photography courtesy of 15-L Films.

But rather than erasing all vestiges of the past, the firm chose to renovate around many of them. “We wanted to take the ruin forward and make it participate, with its unfinished character of superimposed periods, in a new reality,” the partners explain. Each episode charts a specific aspect of the adaptive reuse of the existing building, from door frames and polychrome tiles to rose windows and stratified plasterwork, all leading up to the project’s November 2016 completion.

Still image from Scale 1:5. Photography courtesy of 15-L Films.

Following its debut last December at the Girona Cinema in Barcelona, the entire series is now available on demand by accessing The Architecture Player’s Vimeo channel. 

Exterior of the Sala Beckett Theatre and International Drama Center in Barcelona by Flores & Prats Architects. Photography by Adrià Goula.

In the Sala Beckett lobby, Flores & Prats Architects retained some of the ruins that remained in the 1920s space. Photography by Adrià Goula.

Box office of the Sala Beckett Theatre by Flores & Prats Architects. Photography by Adrià Goula.