Palazzo Diamanti
The project for the expansion of the Palazzo dei Diamanti Modern Art Gallery.
The project finds its main meaning - in addition to a careful analysis of the functional needs expressed by the competition brief - in the relationship established with the Palazzo dei Diamanti and its context.
_Shape and geometry
The new addition bases its formal matrix on the same geometric logic that structures the Palazzo designed by Biagio Rossetti, a choice that allows the new intervention - different in language and matter - to be part of the evolutionary logic of the existing building. The adoption of a single and rigorous geometric rule that governs all the measures of the project, from the main ones of the building to the rhythm of the pillars, not only allows to find the correct size for each element, but also reveals the will to conceive the new addition as a dialogical device more than a stand-alone object.
_The system of voids and solids
Consistent with the spatial structure of the Palazzo dei Diamanti - characterized by an alternation of full and voids, volumes and open spaces - the new intervention is planimetrically arranged in such a way as to ideally continue the same logic: the new building, in fact, distances itself from the wall that concludes the sixteenth-century courtyard by creating a further courtyard that enriches the already precious spatial sequence. In this way, the ideal path that from the entrance of the Palace, through the building and the portico, arrives in the courtyard up to the boundary wall towards the garden, continues in a new sequence that alternates still full and empty. A sequence characterized by the presence of water, which gives the empty space a suspended character, and the portico of the new pavillion that gives depth to the space.
_The wall as a threshold
Central is therefore the role attributed to the wall that separates the courtyard from the garden. However we want to interpret it, both as a simple separation between two external spaces and as a threshold that divides but at the same time connects the known and the rational from what is other, it represents the soul of the place. Spacing the new building from the existing wall has allowed us to preserve its metaphorical threshold status, an element of transition, in that condition which, to use Rella's words, "detaches us from our cognitive and existential habits and exposes us to the terrible and exciting discovery of the other, of what, in the first instance, appears mysterious to us. "
_The time
Finally, that unfinished condition that characterizes the Palazzo Ferrarese, clearly visible in the contrast between the richness of the external marble facades and the more bare character of the internal courtyard and the boundary wall of the garden, is also found in the new intervention: there is no cladding, no superstructures. The building is reduced to the essential, to its pure structure, like an old fabrica in a moment of its building process.
_Potential and flexibility of the new building
The new building, whose extension is equal to 660 square meters (580 square meters of internal space), is typologically similar to a pavilion, in the English sense of the word, a lightweight artifact created to be placed in the park. From a formal point of view, the building is structured as a double order of vertical pillars that support a horizontal flat roof. The vertical enclosures are mostly made with large glass panels (which can be darkened with a curtain system when necessary), which allow the total visual permeability of the building from inside to outside and vice versa.
The building is organized into 4 functional areas:
• an entrance area from the garden, necessary to guarantee its independence from the rest of the building
• the exhibition space: a large open space, reconfigurable according to the needs with a system of movable walls.
• technical areas: one dedicated to restrooms and one to storage.
The building, through a system of movable walls, can live independently from the rest of the museum or be an integral part of it: it can be used as an exhibition hall, as a space dedicated to special activities - conferences, workshops, events - or, finally, thanks to the direct entrance from the garden, it can work independently even during the closing times of the building.
