Casa Duquesa: architectural intervention, urban memory and curatorial space in the historic center of Granada
The Casa Duquesa project, developed in 2019 on the central Duquesa street in Granada, constitutes an example of contemporary architectural intervention in a historical context loaded with urban, social and cultural meanings. The house arises from the union of two disused apartments that, through operations of minimal intervention and maximum spatial expressiveness, are transformed into a home with a strong curatorial vocation.
This article analyzes Casa Duquesa from a triple perspective: (1) as an architectural work of rehabilitation, which liberates and resignifies pre-existence; (2) as an urban device, which dialogues with the history of Duquesa Street, marked by its noble and university past, as well as by the episodes of the Civil War; and (3) as a hybrid cultural space, adapted to the professional lives of its owners, curators and art collectors.
The research shows that Casa Duquesa is representative of a trend in contemporary architecture: that of conceiving the historic home as a flexible container, capable of hosting daily life, material memory and cultural practices in the same space.
Interior of Casa Duquesa, where you can see the shelving-art-kitchen display in a single piece of furniture that encompasses everything.
Introduction:
The historic center of Granada constitutes a privileged laboratory for architectural rehabilitation practice. The heritage density of the city, together with the contemporary challenges of habitability, forces architects to develop strategies that respect the past and, at the same time, respond to current demands for use and comfort (Fernández-Galiano, 2001).
Casa Duquesa is part of this context, a project that reflects the tension between tradition and contemporaneity. The intervention is based on the principle of “minimum intervention, maximum expressiveness”: it does not seek to erase the past, but rather to enhance it through surgical operations, highlighting the essential and giving new meaning to the accessory.
The owners, dedicated to curating and collecting art, bring a unique nuance to the commission. For them, the home had to function not only as a domestic space, but also as a curatorial laboratory, where architecture becomes a support for works, books and cultural stories.
The objective of this article is to analyze Casa Duquesa as a paradigmatic case of architectural rehabilitation in the historic center of Granada, taking into account its material, urban and cultural dimension.
Urban history and context of Duquesa Street:
Duquesa Street constitutes one of the most significant historical axes of the center of Granada. Its layout was consolidated starting in the 16th century, associated with the construction of noble palaces and convents such as the Monastery of San Jerónimo and the Colegio de San Pablo (today Faculty of Law) (Art Guides, 2020). For centuries this area was an enclave of power, the residence of aristocratic families and a space for academic training.
In the 20th century, the street took on new meaning when it became the headquarters of the Civil Government during the Spanish Civil War. Federico García Lorca was arrested there in 1936, which turned the enclave into a space of painful memory (Rodríguez Alcázar, 2019; El País, 2016).
Today, Duquesa Street maintains a hybrid character: it is a university artery of the Faculty of Law, a student transit space and at the same time repository of a noble and tragic past. This temporal duality makes it a framework loaded with historical layers, ideal for understanding the logic of the Casa Duquesa project: a space where the ancient and the contemporary coexist without canceling each other.
Architectural project: Duquesa House:
The architectural intervention is articulated around three fundamental operations:
1. Spatial liberation: the elimination of false ceilings allowed the original height of the rooms to be recovered, revealing hidden structures and generating a more generous spatiality. This operation responds to the principle of revealing what is pre-existing instead of imposing new forms.
2. Central furniture as an architectural device: instead of compartmentalizing, it was decided to introduce a multifunctional carpentry element that articulates the main uses: kitchen, library and storage. This piece of furniture functions as a domestic and cultural nucleus, a direct reflection of the life of its owners.
3. Hybrid aesthetics: the project does not seek uniformity, but rather dialogue between old and new. The constructive traces coexist with contemporary finishes, generating a stratified reading of the space.
This type of intervention is part of an international trend of precision architecture applied to heritage contexts, comparable to rehabilitation projects in European cities such as Lisbon or Bologna (Rossi, 1982; Tostões, 2013).
Link with the owners: curating, collection and living:
The most innovative dimension of the project lies in its relationship with users. The owners, exhibition curators and collectors, conceive the home as a hybrid space between home and cultural archive.
The central piece of furniture functions as a miniature museographic device: it allows the exhibition of books, catalogs and small pieces, and articulates internal routes that are reminiscent of those of an art gallery (El País, 2016). Thus, everyday life is integrated with curatorial practices, blurring the boundaries between inhabiting and exhibiting.
This approach connects with contemporary reflections on domesticity as a cultural setting (Colomina, 1999). At Casa Duquesa, space is not understood as a mere container of basic functions, but as a platform for symbolic production that expands beyond the private.
Discussion: urban dialogues, memory and domestic space:
The analysis of Casa Duquesa allows us to discuss several key aspects:
1. Urban memory: the intervention is not understood in isolation, but as part of a neighborhood steeped in history. Architecture becomes a means to dialogue with the past, making temporal layers visible and keeping alive the historical story of Duquesa Street (Rodríguez Alcázar, 2019).
2. Architecture as a cultural container: the project transcends the domestic program to become a cultural space on a domestic scale, responding to the curatorial logic of its inhabitants (Colomina, 1999).
3. Temporal transparency: the decision to show materials and construction traces connects with a critical stance towards the homogenization of rehabilitation. Architecture is presented as a visible palimpsest (Rossi, 1982).
4. Hybrid typology: Casa Duquesa questions the traditional categories of housing and museum, proposing an intermediate model that could be applied to other urban contexts with heritage density (Tostões, 2013).
Interior of Casa Duquesa, where you can see the art display shelf.
Conclusions:
Casa Duquesa constitutes a paradigmatic case of architectural intervention in historical contexts. Its relevance lies in three dimensions:
– As a rehabilitation work, it shows that minimal intervention can generate maximum expressiveness and habitability.
– As an urban object, it is inserted in a neighborhood with complex memory, keeping its story alive through architecture.
– As a hybrid cultural space, it adapts to the curatorial life of its owners, turning domesticity into a cultural platform.
The project confirms the validity of a trend in contemporary architecture: that of conceiving the historic home not only as a functional space, but as a territory of cultural and urban experimentation (Fernández-Galiano, 2001; González Martínez, 2003).
Bibliography:
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-Fernández-Galiano, L. (2001). Architecture as text: theory and criticism. Madrid: Alliance.
-González Martínez, J. (2003). The urban memory of Granada. Granada: University of Granada.
-Art Guides. (2020). Noble houses in the Duquesa neighborhood. Recovered from https://www.guiasdearte.com
-Rodríguez Alcázar, J. (2019). Duquesa Street, prevailing Franco. Bottom Up Blog. Recovered from https://jrodriguezalcazar.wordpress.com
-Rossi, A. (1982). The architecture of the city. Barcelona: Gustavo Gili.
-Tostões, A. (2013). Architecture of the 20th century: memory and intervention. Lisbon: Gulbenkian.
