April 11, 2013

CASA DO CONTO HOTEL ( HOUSE OF TALE )




CASA DO CONTO HOTEL




CASA DO CONTO HOTEL
Casa do Conto (House of Tales) was born three years ago, giving rise to a unique project within the Oporto's growing hotel industry. Unfortunately a fatal fire in March 2009 interrupted this process but not the collective will to complete the project. And many were those who generously honored and supported it.
The House rises now fully rehabilitated, once again seeking its exclusivity within the usual Oporto’s hotel offer, which is becoming gradually generic and impersonal.
Casa do Conto embodies a unique story of life, which is, after all, the history of the city itself. The House highlights Oporto’s XIX century domestic architecture, solemn and vertical, carved by the scars of a time that mediates its decline and rebirth, the memory of the past and the desire for the future, the granite stone of the old facades and the new concrete of staircases and ceilings. It is, indeed, a kind of "fossil architecture" that comes to life.
Graved by various texts, in low relief, covering six separate rooms, these ceilings narrate the changes undergone by the concept of “house” and of this house in particular. Created by different authors, related to the city and its architecture - Filipa Leal, Alvaro Domingues, Jorge Figueira, André Tavares, Nuno Grande and Pedro Bandeira - the six “tales” were spatially distributed by the architects collective Pedra Líquida (Liquid Stone) - authors of the renewal project -, and graphically imagined by the creative designers of R2 Design. The solution, which marks the difference in personality of each space has already been awarded with the 2011 SEGD Design Awards, and has received the Golden Award of the European Design Awards in the category "Signs & Displays"
Casa do Conto offers an innovative hotel concept - arts & residence - providing a personalized style of residence for guests who wish to combine resting with the enjoyment of Oporto’s cultural offer, or for those who wish to create, display or even debate art working. For this reason, Casa do Conto offers a regular schedule of cultural events, involving different artists, designers, curators, groups and art institutions. For the opening period, Casa do Conto established partnership with the art gallery and bookshop Inc. based in Oporto.
Discover Casa do Conto at Rua da Boavista, in the urban circuit between Casa da Música (Oporto’s Concert Hall) and the art galleries street (Rua Miguel Bombarda), on the way to Oporto’s Downtown, and close to the metro stations of Lapa and Carolina Michaelis.
At the door of Casa do Conto, at nº 703, it is written "it was nº 513"; The House rises, so, again and again, with the same facade and its iron doorknocker, evoking those urban memories that should not be forgotten.










FOSSILIZED ARCHITECTURE
Pedra Liquida
In 2008, our office Pedra Líquida (Liquid Stone) was commissioned to create a new Hotel design concept – Casa do Conto, arts&residence - giving life to a beautiful XIX Century Oporto House, through a chirurgical restoration process. 
Unfortunately, on March 2009, few days before the hotel opening, the building suffered a terrible fire.
 
As architects and concept creators we decided that we had to rebuild it, better than before. In fact, recreating its remaining structure was an opportunity to make this new hotel, and the memory of that special house, reborn from the ashes, like the Phoenix.
 
In this sense, the new project evokes, through an abstract approach, the old house adornment and its wall textures by using traditional surfaces – crossed wood patterns, corrugated steel plates and curved plywood panels – as a “mould” for the new concrete walls: at the central staircase; at the back facade; at the cubic bathrooms inside every suite; at the oval-shaped central skylight, a typical Oporto typology. As a result we get a kind of “fossilized architecture” where those modern “skins” rephrase the pre-existing ones.
 
All the concrete ceilings are (re)decorated by carved texts, in bass-relief, where you can read different narratives about the concept of "house" and of that house in particular. Created by different authors related to Oporto and its architecture, those six tails were spatially layered by our office, and graphically imagined by R2 Designers.
Casa do Conto embodies a unique story of life, which is, in fact, the history of the city itself. The hotel highlights Oporto’s domestic architecture, solemn and vertical, carved by the scars of a time that mediates its decline and rebirth, the memory of the past and the desire for the future, the granite stone of the old facades and the new concrete of its inner core.





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PEDRA LIQUIDA
Pedra Líquida (Liquid Stone) was created in 2006 by Alexandra Grande, Daniela Coutinho and Nuno Grande, and it is based at Oporto City Centre. Its main activity relates architectural design, engineering and building management. 
Pedra Líquida aims to live and work for the city cultural consolidation, involving markedly the rehabilitation of urban buildings. Its main projects are related to house renovation (single and collective), new and creative residential and hotel concepts, exhibition design and curatorship.
Pedra Líquida was among the finalist offices of the 2008 FAD Prize, Barcelona, with the installation titled "VIP, Very Irregular Polyhydric Room", at Casa da Música, Oporto; the office was also awarded with the 2nd Prize at the International Competition for the Renovation of the Tram Museum in Oporto. In 2012, Casa do Conto won the first prize at the "Renovation" category of the International Design Awards 2011, Los Angeles and, for the same category, at the Construir 2012 prizes. It was also awarded with an honourable mention both for the 2012 João de Almada prize and for the III Bienal Ibero-americana de Design, and select for the Respect For Architecture Porto 2012 exhibition.