Kafka's castle

The interest felt by the first members of the Taller de Arquitectura for some of the ideas of the Archigram movement, together with a fascination for the form of the cube and the exploration of the possible combinations this permitted, resulted in the construction of a series of projects based around a methodology rooted in the spatial development of this combination.  The apartment block near Sitges known as El Castell (catalan for “castle”, in homage to Franz Kafka) was one of the first examples of this experimentation with vertical development. Without plans, simply with the equation of vertical growth in mind, the cubes were constructed around a sequence of stairs wells. Each cube contains one space (living room-dinning room or bathroom-bedroom) divided by a change in level. One side of each cube connects with the central core of the stair well.

Program: 90 apartments, swimming pool, sauna, bar and restaurants.

Client: J. Abelló

Gross area: 4.000 m2