Description

The industrial compound of the beverage producer Fagar/San Juan Refrescos S.A. is situated in the San Juan area, Paso Antolín, in the center of the Colonia province. The complex of buildings is part of a large 28 hectare industrial park facing a major highway at the front. The building was erected at the highest point of the site, en­abling natural rainwater drainage.

The company required appropriate laboratory, storage and workshop spaces as well as administration offices for the production and bottling of soft drinks and mineral water. The brief included staff and visitor parking, loading bays for delivery trucks and access roads for visitors, such as school classes and tourists. In total, the complex comprises a gross floor area of 3,225 m² and 1,110 m² of covered outdoor areas.

The new outdoor areas and buildings are clearly organized. The shapes of the buildings respond to their functions such as production and bottling, bottle storage and factory administration. The design succeeds without decoration or ornamentation, and uses simple building materials such as brick and concrete. The parking areas for coaches, cars and trucks, and the loading bays are covered by far cantilevering compass shells. The structure is based on the masonry shell construction method developed by Eladio Dieste. The barrel vaults are an inexpensive combination of reinforced masonry and concrete and meet all structural requirements.

During the first phase, offices and workshops were built out of brick. This cube-shaped volume counterbalances the large arches of the production plant, which was designed and built during the second phase. Tradition and aesthetics of Odriozola’s design form a formal and functional integrated whole that characterises Latin American architecture of the outgoing 20^th century.

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Originally published in: Jürgen Adam, Katharina Hausmann, Frank Jüttner, Industrial Buildings: A Design Manual, Birkhäuser, 2004.