Galería Convento is a shopping center located at Güemes neighborhood. It is housed in an old house which used to be a seminary residence. This house, since 1913, underwent many modifications and annexes over time. The first design premise was then removing what was not original of the house, such as walls annexed in the patio and improvised structures. After having performed that, and with the empty canvas, we undertook the gallery’s identity.

Although convents are well-known for being residences for nuns, we decided that, in any case, this word perfectly conveyed the intentions and the historical-typological essence of the building. The idea was to emphasize the historical aspect via the simplicity and color, so as to add afterward a black glossy and metallic commercial paintbrush in every annexes we carried out. In this way, we built metallic entries, store windows, glass pergolas in the patios, and newly-annexed stores in the background.

By doing so, we succeeded in creating the spaces, relating both the old with the new in a search for a flexible and impressive shopping gallery with old time’s flavor. Alongside the old car passageway, we chose to replicate a “small path plenty of culture” with the openings recovered from those intermediate-times annexes. And so manage to build the typical old-town passage together with the “old convent”.

In the background of the convent, there is a fresh and dynamic culinary patio, ideal for using it as a meeting place and enjoying outdoors. Just behind, there is a church with an imposing dome, which naturally plays a part in this so-extraordinary outdoor space of the city of Cordoba. By this way, with metallic paintbrushes, colors and textures, we took part in this place and brought an old house back to life, changing both its purpose and identity, to bring it back to the city, but in the next century.

Architects: Estudio Montevideo, Pablo Dellatorre
Author Architects: Marco Ferrari, Gabriela Jagodnik, Ramiro Veiga, Pablo Dellatorre
Design Team: Sofía Faur, Ignacio Igarzabal
Photographs: Gonzalo Viramonte

https://www.archdaily.com/896780/galeria-convento-estudio-montevideo-plus-pablo-dellatorre