Mons Observans

Architects: Toni Gironès     Photography: Aitor Estévez     Construction Period:  2008-2012     Location:  Montmeló, Spain

The archaeological site of Can Tacó stands in the Turó d’en Roina, in the natural setting of Turons de les Tres Creus. In a highly fragmented metropolitan area, we have been asked to recover an area of outstanding natural and archaeological value.

Built by successive terracing and partly with licorella local stone, what had been an important settlement prior to the construction of the Via Augusta, is today a natural viewpoint towards the Vallès counties.

We have intervened in the backfill of the Roman traces, improving the content (the space) and highlighting the container (the walls). We have worked with the land that during centuries had covered the historical remainings and finally got accumulated outside of the archeological site created by the excavations.

This land, just like the gravel and the rocks of the old (supposedly) Roman quarry, has been selected and ordered, but in a new disposition, giving it a new meaning. A first steel mesh contains the new stones, which contain the land and gravel that will jointly reproduce the overlapping horizontal planes where the Romans once transited. A second mesh, denser and thinner, is disposed like a curtain during a period of time, like a backdrop where the various archaeological remains are projected.