The development of Barcelona’s Eixample district has been shaped by an unexpected source: washerwomen. The clothes of the Catalan bourgeoisie were washed, scrubbed, rinsed, and cleaned in the wells of Calle Aiguafreda, a quaint and picturesque street. It is here that Casa de las Lavanderas – a historical washerwomen’s house – was restored by architect Raúl Sánchez.
Step inside a historical Barcelona house that scrubbed up nicely
The architect’s clients were a couple with a newborn baby. Sánchez wanted to make sure that the narrow two-storey house reflected its history, having accommodated washerwomen and their families, who went out daily to their wells to hand-scrub clothes.
‘The history of the place, the existing wells, the washerwomen… I tried to take all this history and translate it into the present times,’ the architect told Wallpaper*. ‘The biggest challenge is always to make something that can move you, to bring that narrative element of the well of light into the functionality of the house, and create a space which can enhance the level of complexity that any house has to have.’
The washerwomen’s house overlooks two streets, Calle Aiguafreda and Calle Granollers. However, there is a 1.5m drop in level between them. The architect had to carefully integrate access to the house at mid-level on the 40 sq m ground floor. A new staircase leads down to the lower level, while another ascends to the first floor, which houses bedrooms and a bathroom.
While the building lost its original laundry purpose, the architect made sure to nod to its context through bright cobalt blue lacquer, reviving the memory of the wells in a contemporary way. In the heart of the building is a lightwell, topped with an openable skylight, allowing the sun to shine down through the semi-subterranean ground-floor spaces. ‘The well of light, with the glossy blue lacquer, is the element which creates the entire project’, says Sánchez.
The ground floor features an open-plan living, dining, and kitchen area. The client, who spent time living in Japan, adored the integration of folding doors made of wood and rice paper, which nod to the old washrooms’ use of large screens as room dividers.
The material palette is a dialogue of terracotta tiles, glazed tiles, reddish lacquers and paints, all an ode to the traditional clay of neighbouring orchards. The interior overhaul marks the first phase of the project’s new look, with a garden redesign currently under development.
Casa de las Lavanderas provides a strong narrative of preserving historical context without slipping into conventional clichés. As the architect concludes, ‘I would like [people] to feel that the house is part of the history of the place, and at the same time, it is adding a new contemporary layer.’