The López De Heredia Winery wanted a new pavilion to contain an older pavilion which had been discovered in its outhouses, originally commissioned for the world trade fair exhibition in 1910.
This new pavilion was to be exhibited at the Alimentaria Fair in Barcelona and then relocated to the bodegas at Haro in Rioja, before being replaced by a new extension of cultural buildings. As such, the new pavilion was a stepping-stone: a bridge between the past, present and future development of the bodega’s legacy.
To determine how the present would evolve, we began by stepping into our vision of the future for the bodegas. As we worked backwards from these studies, our new pavilion started to emerge.
Made from timber and designed in a fin-de-siecle style, the old pavilion became a jewel within the new container. Like a series of Russian dolls, the new pavilion itself would eventually be housed within the new extension at the bodegas – creating another layer within a larger composition.
Proceeding with this ‘onion’ analogy, various studies led to a container developed in sectional cuts. The section distorts from a rectangle around the old pavilion to a memory shape, resembling a decanter. Although this was not an intentional end point, it now provides a fitting symbol that enhances the long-standing built presence of the bodegas.