SEAT dinning buildings

The last 23 of October I went to Barcelona for the 48h Open House and the main objective of this short visit was the SEAT factory, concretely the dinning building for SEAT factory workers that is organized in the shape of a comb to create a series of landscaped courtyards connected by pergolas that provided a warm atmosphere to the workers that broke with the monotony of the mass production system.

The construction of this building was very innovative: for the first time, due to the fact that the  building had to be built on low density black filled land, aluminum was used as a structural material (a lightweight material). Which until now had only been used in the aeronautical industry).

In 1957 this buildings won the first Reynolds Memorial Award for architecture built in aluminum, awarded by the American Institute of architecture. At that time it was an event of great impact, both in Spain and in Europe, as it was a highly prestigious jury.

What I liked most about this building was the way of building thinking on the resting of the people that were going to use it. These people were going to be in the building only during a short break so the main objective was that they could feel relaxed and distracted during this break. This was accomplished by facing all the openings of the building to a small garden with grass and a small fountain instead of facing them to the industrial area.