Asomarse al patio

  • Guillermo Cárdenas

Repurposing of an Andalusian patio into a community theatre. A patio is a communal lightwell at the core of a tenement. ‘Asomarse al patio’ repurposes the neglected space within a modern patio into a community theatre. As testimonials from the past generation of Andalusian housewives are re-enacted and projected on the wall of the patio, its architecture becomes a stage where performance interweaves with the audience: a community of neighbours.​ In Andalusia, the panoptical distribution of windows around a patio allowed housewives to engage in small talk as they would hang their laundry. This weaved social networks that held communities of neighbours together. Nowadays, as these dynamics have disappeared, 'Peeking into the patio' becomes an act of resistance against urban verticalization and the dissociation of communities.