OPENING IN MADRID , FIND US IN LASGASCA 25

SARGADELOS returns to Madrid 3/12/2021

After almost two years, we dare to open again a shop of our products in Madrid. We would like it to be an embassy, a delegation of our way of feeling, of thinking, of living, which, from Galicia, and for more than two hundred years now, we have been trying to transfer to other latitudes.

Times are not easy, but for entrepreneurs and emigrants they have never been easy. And in Galicia we know something of this eagerness to improve, to seek the unknown, of homesickness for what we have already experienced. That is why we are coming back.

We want this shop to be a unique, different, evocative space. A space that captures the spirit and the genuine atmosphere of our factories. We try to bring customers and visitors closer to the artisan component of all the manufacturing processes of SARGADELOS porcelain. We try to make the buyer capture the essence of our work by using original furniture and tools from our production plants as decorative and functional elements.

We have also taken care of the location of the premises, selecting a privileged location in the heart of the Salamanca district. The premises used to be the carriage passage of a stately building built in the 19th century. Its architect was the Marquis of Cubas, Don Francisco de Cubas y González-Montes, whose most outstanding work is the Almudena Cathedral.

The premises have 195 m2 and the characteristic elements of the building have been respected, high ceilings, iron beams and columns, and its old wooden structure. Respecting the formal characteristics as much as possible is one of the main ideas behind the philosophy of Isabel López-Quesada, the best possible ally for the creation of this space. She says: "I don't try to fight against space and architecture, but to enhance them. The work and the place speak to you". And here, she has delivered.

For the furniture we have used original working material, used for many years in our factories. It has been developed by us and for us, so that it conveys and recalls the function and characteristics of its effective use in the workplace.

The wooden shelves (native Galician pine) come from the old moulds and dies warehouse of the El Castro factory. These moulds are one of the most precious assets of SARGADELOS, and we must conserve them with great care because all the moulds are generated from them, which has allowed, and still allows, the serial reproduction of our characteristic shapes over the years.

The casting tables, the process in which the porcelain paste takes shape, have a table surface of almost two metres in diameter. They have a rotating central axis that facilitates the work, as in this way it is not necessary to go around it, but rather the table brings the whole perimeter closer to you.

We also wanted to recreate with original elements another of the most important processes of our production, the baking, when the porcelain paste finally becomes the noble material with great thermal resistance, shine, whiteness and translucency that make it exceptional.

In this case, the Madrid gallery dialogues with the exterior through the windows with a fundamental element of our kilns: the wagons, which, carefully loaded with porcelain pieces, enter and leave our kilns uninterruptedly at 1400º of temperature. The ones on display belong to the continuous kiln model, and their design is original from our factory, adapted to the specific requirements of the kiln at the SARGADELOS production plant in Cervo.

Another of the star pieces that has travelled from the premises of the Sada plant is a beautiful wooden caging that formed part of the reception area of one of our production plants. The way in which this curious element defines the shop space is remarkable.

The lathe tables are also an instrument that speaks of their function. They are used to shape the paste by means of continuous central rotation, a way of working typical of traditional pottery that allows perfectly symmetrical radial volumes to be achieved.

We would like to remain in Madrid for many years, where many Galicians have settled in search of the cosmopolitanism of the big city and an improvement in their living conditions. And they have felt comfortable and welcome. Because Madrid is an open, respectful, free city.

May the destiny be favourable to all of us.