15.11.2018
Palazzo dei Diamanti
DAP studio received the second place award in the competition on invitation for the enlargement of the Palazzo dei Diamanti, located in the heart of the Renaissance Addizione Erculea.
The main body of the building, with a “U” planimetric development, has a main internal courtyard and a large garden, separated by a open gallery.
On the ground floor, the Art Modern Gallery is organized in two separate and not contiguous wings of the building.
The main theme of the competition was the design of a new pavilion connecting the two exhibition wings, able to enlarge the museum spaces and guarantee the circularity of the visit. The aim of the competition was also the renovation of the ground floor of the Palace, with the design of a new core of services and the design of the external areas.
DAP studio project relates to the historical building moving in two opposing directions: harmony and opposition. On the one hand, the strengthening of some fundamental themes – the axiality, the portals system, the relationship between solids and voids, the theme of the unfinished – roots the project in its context and generates a natural sense of belonging.
On the other hand, the pavilion grafting is an intentional act that redefines the space, opposing the lightness of a new glass volume to the historic building materiality.
The pavilion closes the unfinished side of the main courtyard ensuring continuity to the exhibition system, while maintaining a visual relationship with the garden.
Its architecture is made of few elements: a glass box between two horizontal planes, the base and the roof; a reflective pool of water; a brise-soleil on the garden side that is not a simple two-dimensional element but a real wall, that evokes the idea of a dematerialized mass.
A mass made of thin white metal elements which generate a light framework.
Inside the Pavilion, on axis with the entry points, a single material volume emphasizes the succession of the portals.
The project takes the theme of the portal, as a meeting of the ways, also in correspondence with the entry points from the city, marked by three concrete portals.
The courts and open spaces landscape, designed by Studio Antonio Perazzi, is designed to emphasize the idea of emptiness.
A system of geometrical flat surfaces is the direct continuation of internal functions and the natural landscape has be designed to be transformed: regular green volumes can be create to organize different outdoor exhibition spaces.
