BASE CULTURAL CENTRE IN THE FORMER ANSALDO FACTORY IN MILAN
An open project as an opportunity to reflect on the meaning and forms of new cultural institutions
Onsitestudio architects
This project inside the former Ansaldo factory proposes a reflection on the meaning of new cultural institutions: in particular, it confronts a large building and relates to it as an “open project”, unfettered by a single form but instead at the service of flexible programmes and different activities and ready to host multiple scenarios. The intervention involved “removing”, taking away rather than adding: a delicate process of subtraction reduced the technical elements and plant systems, visual or spatial interferences and barriers to permit the clearest possible reading of the dimension and character of the spaces and, with them, the different activities taking place at the same time. The intervention profoundly requalified the existing building in structural terms, seeking to minimise the impact on the quality of the original spaces and permit a reading of the difference between new and pre-existing elements.
