| Arnaldo Pomodoro
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Artists require space. It is nearly impossible for them to find adequate spaces
in urban centres; the peripheries of industrial centres, on the other hand, feature belts
of abandoned buildings that can be transformed, with a little imagination, into large
containers of artworks for display, cataloguing, restoration, conservation. They require a
composition of functional spaces for these activities, in such a way that they will also
be surprising, due to the particular nature of the new function. «No chemically pure
functionality exists. The transformed edifice presented here was an old bolt factory on
two levels at Quinto de' Stampi, near Milan, in a zone where abandoned industrial
buildings are awaiting renovation for new uses. From the original structure we have
conserved the round arches, lateral to a large central space, now covered with trusses in
wood and glass. The masonry has been painted white, the floorings poured in treated
concrete, the iron parts painted white or left bare. The wooden containers are in a
natural finish. The furnishings are few. The light, a protagonist, comes from above, and
from the large glazings and deep openings of the roof. On the upper level smaller spaces
have been created for archives and study. The design pays close attention to the small
shifts of meaning that can take place in an empty, unified space, through decisive
reductions of formal impact and expressive redundancies. The result is a rather mute
interior, in which a recollection of its previous function survives, in spite of the clear
impulse for abstraction. The desire to return to a greater homogeneity of form led me to
imagine a new facade placed over the original one (which, frankly was nothing special).
The new elevation is made with a system of squares of double -T beams, with grill panels.
This is, in substance, a silent edifice that, however, I believe is appropriate to house
the highly expressive artworks of Arnaldo Pomodoro. PierLuigi Cerri Casabella 648 |
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