CARAMELL (Icicle)
installation for the Torrent Gran’s ice well
Víctor Mata i Ventura
DESCRIPTIVE MEMORY
Laguna Prize
Barcelona, 23rd July 2020
1. Reason
At the request of the city council of Abrera, I present an installation designed for the Margarit’s ice well located in a natural area ─Torrent Gran─ open to the public in the municipality of Abrera (Barcelona). The use and signage of this geological, hydrological and biological area is due to the desire to preserve it together with the archaeological, architectural and cultural heritage it contains: material and symbolic expression of the historical heritage-territory. The Ca n’Amat urbanization and the industrial estates of Sant Ermengol and Barcelonès de Abrera constrict the Torrent Gran, an area of high ecological value and publicly owned heritage, an example of a small quality landscape that must be maintained and improved. The site of Caramell is a few meters from the path that along the Torrent Gran and sixty meters from the ice well.
2. Historical context
The origin and functionality of dry stone constructions date back to the origin of civilization. The technique of dry stone construction, sometimes consolidated with a simple lime or mud mortar, has led to the construction of many and varied productive infrastructures including artisanal or pre-industrial ones, such as the Abrera ice well. The first known news of this well is recorded in a book of taxation of Vilafranca’s Marquis on 1751. It is located in one of the deepest ravines of the Torrent Gran, very close to the water course and a pond from where the ice was extracted in winter. The fact that it was well connected and close to the royal road favored the supply, transport and marketing of ice. The well is small in size, its inside diameter measures 5 meters and the depth is to be determined. It preserves the original stone dome with an opening at the top and a side window for handling the ice.
3. Concept
Caramell is a work that I integrate into the Architecture and Landscape program, which is conceptualized and designed in order to exalt the ice well of the Torrent Gran and the surrounding landscape. It was erected in a field of olive trees near the well and with a wide landscape vision. Caramell's conical trunk shape recalls icicles that form with frozen water from a fountain, river or mountain or with the frozen dripping of a roof.
Its existence "artializes" and contrasts the natural sector of the Torrent Gran with the contemporary industrial landscape that surrounds it. In this sense, it highlights the natural and heritage values of which the municipality of Abrera participates, and is a tool to disseminate the natural environment and as a teaching resource for the population. It suggests a dialogical relationship with the medium of which it is part, manifests a new perspective of the landscape and recovers a cultural space for the enjoyment of people. Caramell respects the place and renounces the imposition of forms outside the landscape that welcomes it. It is made of pebbles from the Magarola’s torrent, a material that nature recycles and decomposes. The technique of dry stone as a constituent element of the contemporary landscape is consistent with all these premises.
4. Data sheet
Name: CARAMELL (ICICLE)
Typology: Architecture and landscape.
Material: 20 tons of river pebbles.
Author: Víctor Mata i Ventura.
Disposition: conical structure, built with stone and without consolidators.
Dimension: 10.40 m in length x 1.50 m maximum height x 2.50 m maximum width.
Reason: Commissioned by the city council of Abrera to “artialize” a public space of leisure and culture.
Chronology: january - april 2018.
Location: Torrent Gran (Abrera, Baix Llobregat, Barcelona).
Links
https://www.setsetset.cat/noticia/97551/
www.victormataventura.com
Instagram @victormataventura
https://www.facebook.com/Land-Art-Associaci%C3%B3-Catalunya
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndSfnRNSUOU&t=27s
Víctor Mata i Ventura
Barcelona, 23 July 2020