Short answer: The grand early-20th-century apartments are the jewels of the housing stock. Restoring them demands a delicate balance between what is preserved, what is updated and what is transformed.
· Projects · 10 min
There is one type of project we are particularly passionate about: the early 20th-century apartment in a stately building of the Eixample, Gràcia, central Madrid or any major city with a stock of well-built bourgeois housing. Ceilings three metres or more, original mouldings, hydraulic tile floors, solid wood joinery, generous layouts.
These are spaces with extraordinary potential, but they pose challenges that a new-build apartment does not. Restoring them well requires a sensibility — and a technique — that not every studio masters.
A frequent mistake is arriving at day one on site with a closed project, without having carried out a prior constructive survey. In a building from 1910, what lies behind the walls almost never matches what the cadastral plan suggests.
Before designing, we need to know:
This prior study adds two to four weeks at the start of the project, but saves months of surprises during construction.
This is the most delicate decision and the one that most defines the outcome. There is no universal rule, but there is a principle we always apply: preserve what cannot be reproduced; update what prevents living well; transform what limits the space without adding value.
Elements we almost always preserve:
Plaster mouldings and ceiling roses. They are unrepeatable craft pieces. Even when damaged, they can be restored by a good plasterer. The cost of restoration is a fraction of the value they bring.
Original hydraulic tile floors. If in good condition, they are polished and sealed. If pieces are missing, reproductions can be commissioned from specialist workshops. A 1900 hydraulic floor has a chromatic richness and an irregularity that no current production can exactly match.
Exterior wood joinery, when of quality and in repairable condition. It is stripped, treated, adjusted and fitted with double glazing if the section allows it. If it does not, exact replicas are made with the necessary technical improvements.
Solid panelled interior doors. Restored and fitted with new quality hardware, they bring a visual and acoustic weight no contemporary door can give.
Elements we almost always transform:
Long distributing corridors. The 19th-century bourgeois apartment was organised around a long, dark corridor with rooms on either side. That layout reflects a way of life that no longer exists. We open, connect, create visual diagonals that let natural light reach the heart of the home.
Kitchens and bathrooms. The original kitchens were service kitchens, small and separated. Bathrooms were a late addition, often improvised in residual spaces. Both need to be rethought from scratch in concept, installations and finishes.
Full installations. Electrical, plumbing, drainage, climate control: all executed new, meeting current code and preparing the space for home automation and contemporary comfort.
One of the most beautiful challenges of these projects is finding the right tone between heritage and present. The two extremes are equally failed: an old apartment turned into a minimalist loft where every trace of the past has been erased loses its soul; an apartment restored as a museum where everything is period replica loses its life.
What we look for is a dialogue: where the old and the contemporary recognise, respect and enhance each other. A concrete example: 19th-century ceiling mouldings live alongside a contemporary bespoke media unit in wood and brass. The moulding frames; the unit inhabits. Neither dominates; both need each other.
This dialogue requires restraint. The temptation to "add something modern for contrast" is dangerous if not done with sensibility. Contrast is not an end: it is a tool, and like every tool, it can be used well or badly.
Restoring a high-end old apartment presents technical challenges new construction does not:
Floor levelling. Old slabs are rarely level. Differences can be several centimetres between one end of a room and the other. Self-levelling mortar is the standard solution, but the added weight on a slab that may be over a century old must be calculated.
Acoustic insulation. Joist-and-vault slabs transmit sound far more than a contemporary concrete slab. If neighbours are a factor, acoustic solutions (floating floor, acoustic ceilings) must be incorporated, and they reduce ceiling height. In an apartment with 3.20 m ceilings this is not an issue; in one with 2.70 m, it can be.
Bathroom and kitchen ventilation. Many old apartments have ventilation shafts obstructed or in poor condition. Code requires mechanical ventilation in windowless bathrooms and in kitchens. Duct routes must be drawn before closing the layout.
Heritage protection. In some cities, listed buildings have restrictions on what can be modified, even inside. Façades, exterior joinery, common elements and, in singular cases, interior layouts may be protected. The studio must verify these restrictions before designing.
A common mistake is to budget an integral renovation as if it were a standard refurbishment. It is not. The integral renovation of a high-end old apartment carries additional costs from:
As very general guidance, an integral high-end renovation of a 150-250 m² apartment can require between 12 and 20 months of work (design + construction) and an investment that, depending on scope and finishes, may range from €1,800 to €3,500 per m² of construction alone, plus design fees. These ranges are indicative and depend enormously on the state of the property, the city and the level of finishes.
Despite their complexity, restored old apartments produce results that new construction can rarely match. The reason is simple: they have raw material that is no longer manufactured. The light of a main façade with generous balconies, the clear height of a three-and-a-half metre ceiling, the proportion of rooms designed to be lived in with amplitude, the weight of a solid double-leaf door, the irregularity of a century-old hydraulic floor. All of that was already there, waiting for someone to bring it forward.
Our work is not to invent that richness. It is to reveal it, protect it and make it compatible with contemporary life.
Every renovation begins with a heritage inventory: we walk the apartment cataloguing each original element, assessing its condition and recommending preservation, restoration or argued replacement. That inventory is the first design tool and the guarantee that nothing is lost through carelessness or haste.
We work with moulding restorers, hydraulic floor polishers, carpenters specialised in period windows and structural engineers experienced in old construction. That network of specialised trades is as important as the design itself.
If you have an apartment with history and want to give it a second life worthy of what it deserves, let's talk.
Whatever gives the flat its character and cannot be reproduced: hydraulic tiles, mouldings, carpentry, coffered ceilings and the original room proportions. Everything technical — services, insulation, acoustics — should be replaced without hesitation.
Out-of-true walls and floors, unknown structural conditions, obsolete services, poor acoustic and thermal performance, and community or heritage rules that limit façade and layout changes.
Between eight and eighteen months from first conversation to handover, with permits and restoration trades — not construction itself — usually setting the pace.