Nauteyer

Transformación del Centro Niemeyer en un espacio mixto. Fusión de aprovechamiento cultural y creación de un Club Náutico.

Resident Nihil. Niemeyer Incubation

Resident Nihil. Phase One. Niemeyer Incubation.

El Centro Niemeyer se ha quedado cojo. El proyecto global era mucho más ambicioso, y puesto que sólo se ha construido una parte, ésta no funciona. Todo el proyecto depende de cómo se organiza el tráfico rodado y ferroviario. El proyecto de la Isla de la Innovación y la Puerta de Avilés no se llevarán a cabo hasta que las comunicaciones no se resuelvan. Una vez finalizados estos proyectos, el Niemeyer comenzará a funcionar, aunque tal vez necesite un nuevo planteamiento formal y de uso. De momento es sólo una bonita cabeza con un cuerpo sin desarrollar o en descomposición. Y es posible que no sea la cabeza más adecuada.

Resident Nihil. Avilés Ressurrection (III)

CHAPTER THREE. WEATHER AND DEMOGRAPHICS.

Avilés is a grey city. Old buildings made with grey granite, a vast industrial area in grey tones and a grey climate full of clouds heavy with rain.
Rain doesn't surprise anybody any longer, for it happens once every two days.
Buildings in historic part of the city are very close to each other, providing a mild refuge against the rain.

Here's some stadistics about weather: Historic climate data of Avilés

People in Avilés was very young in 80s, and the city was popular for its celebrations, today the larger portion of population is middle aged.

Resident Nihil. Avilés Ressurrection (II)

CHAPTER TWO. THE PLACE.

Although there's trace of Neolitic settlementes in Acheulean Period (about 100,000 years BC), the name is based on the Roman name Abilius, which demonstrates the Roman presence in the area about II century BC.

In X century King Alfonso III built Castle Gauzón over a previous one (dated about VII century) to defend the village against pirate raids. In XI century, King Alfonso VI conceded the title od Villa de Realengo, to respond only before the King and no other. The villa had the monopoly of salt commerce in the area, such a privilege lasted for centuries, trading salt from Castille and even Andalucia to the rest of Europe.

Many a seaman were born Avilés.
Rui González with Ramón Bonifaz broke the Triana chain bridge in Seville ramming his ship into it and thus allowing the Christians to conquer Seville from the Muslims in 1248.

Pedro Menéndez de Avilés was Captain General of West Indies and First Adelantado de la Florida in times of King Pillip II. His brother Bartolomé was Admiral of the Indian Fleet carrying gold to Spain.

In Modern Era, the once strategic port, began to loose influence and traded agricultural goods with moderate results.

In XIX century Avilés was one of the firts cities with electricity and regained a prosperous trade with coal and the Real Compañía Asturiana de Minas.
In XX century, both the revolution in 1934 and the Civil War took a high fare in lives. In the 50s, big industrial companies established in Avilés, rebuilding the port to create new docks for the goos to trade: Ensidesa (Arcelor-Mittal), Empresa Nacional de aluminio (Alcoa), Cristalería Española, Asturiana de Zinc, Frigoríficos Fandiño, Arnao, etc.

In 1981 Avilés was declared Contaminated Atmosphere Area, becoming the most contaminated city in Spain, with high asthma cases. Its dangerous levels were even higher than the Polish city of Katowice, which was considered as an example of an unhealthy city. The small streams that pour into the ria (Raices, Magdalena and Vioño) hardly could receive the title of river.

Today Avilés is the 3rd city in Asturias with 80,000 inhabitants, only 26 Km away from Oviedo, and 14 Km away from the airport.
The city has the main fishing port in Asturias and the second one in commerce.
In 2003 began the process to clean the ria of contaminated mud in the bottom. Still in progress.
The building of Centro Internacional Oscar Niemeyer in 2011 has placed Avilés worldwide. And the Council has an urbanistic development planned to renew both sides of the ria.

Resident Nihil. Avilés Resurrection. (I)

CHAPTER ONE. A FIRST APPROACH.

Avilés is the 3rd city in Asturias, with 80,000 inhabitants it plays the role of the last and ugly sister compared to its elder sisters: Oviedo and Gijón.

Oviedo, birthplace of the Asturian Kings in IX century, has always been a place related to culture and noble families, a cosmopolitan city that used to have many high standing visitors. Of course, the Prince of Asturias Awards have contributed in a huge way to that perception nowadays.

Fundación Prícipe de Asturias

Gijón evolved from a peaceful coastal village to a demanded destiny for tourists who looked for its beaches and nocturnal life.

Avilés, on the contrary, raised from a tiny fishermans village to a prosperous industrial city in XX century, when Ensidesa adpated the existing ria by building new docks to give course to its products in the 50s decade. Soon other big industries colonized the surrounding area, mostly in the right margin of the river.

The Monster in Seseña Brick Mess

Seseña, an enormous monument to quick money based on building speculation. Like a massive behemoth too heavy to move away from that horrid tyre depot not many paces away.

Let's have some fun and wipe away a bit of that boring appearance just by masking it behind so light a curtain that it'll barely scratch the surface of the problem, much less solve it, but at least distract our glances away wondering how did anyone came to see THAT as a solution.

So be it. I'd veil the brick wall, and use some tyres in doing so. And then partially hide some of the tyres with a few somewhat reptilian metal scales and pull out of the wall some pipes like if a giant monster had ripped away some veins, not finishing the wounding job.

And then I awoke, and I tried to CONSTRUCT the model of such a nightmare. And began to calm down just to ease the construction process.

The result: the original idea has lost its charming freshness, and the project became rigid, too rigid to move, and, like the massive monster of the beggining, it lacked the audacity to venture a movement to get away from dullness or even looking at any place other than that stinking tyre depot.