The Restoration Story of a Staircase and a Portal

Everything has a beginning.

Along with his former partner, Alfonso García Noreña, Antonio Lamela took his first step in architecture with a residential building on number 10 along Calle Segovia in Madrid. Signed in 1954, it was a project of all-round architecture where Lamela himself was not only an architect but also a promoter and builder. As he explained, he wanted to know “the real complexity of the architectural approach.”

On these houses of symmetrical composition, brick facade, and where rhythm is specified by a central axis and determined in turn by the portal and the kitchen terraces of the central homes, time also passes by. Today, the portal needs to adapt to the current accessibility regulations.

The restoration of this unique place will consist of improving access to the portal through the entrance hall. In the present, it is achieved by light staircases. An elevator will be installed to maintain the height between the ground floor hall and the portal on the first floor. Original elements will also be recovered in the facade of the hall and will be affixed in the enclosure, as the original design left it open.

It’s a small space of 28 square meters but where some of the beats of Antonio Lamela’s creative impulse are present. His passion for Piet Mondrian conveyed through a painting of surprising tiles for his time; a small staircase of cantilevered steps that seem to levitate on the ground and that shows its concern for the tiny space it occupies, and the staggering light that shines through the picture window providing warmth and retrospection.