H71 is a house of about 200 square meters set on a borderline between the museum area of Madrid in Paseo del Prado and the Barrio de las Letras, model of the ancient city. The building is from the 50’s, made by Gutierrez Soto, the architect born in Madrid, and being one of the first examples of concrete structure in a residential building in Madrid.
The owners were looking for a house in the city center, sunny and from where you could see the roofs of Madrid. They found a house with this characteristic, but it was fully compartmentalized, so it was necessary an entire refurbishment.
The firm strategy departed from a neccessity, a big, open and clear space for the owner’s art collection. We left the concrete structure seen, that allowed us this flexibility that we were looking for the new proposal. The aim of the project was to look for a space with a concept halfway between a house and an art gallery, without loosing the scale and comfort of a domestic space.
Referring to materials we selected oak wood for the floor and Macael marble in the bathrooms, both materials were present in the building previously. Related to the colors, we used a neutral palette to give value to the paintings and the photographs of the owner’s collection.
