Type of project
Museum
Year
2018
Tag
Geometry Technology White Wood Light
Status
Invitation to collaborate – completed
Location
Milan, Italy
Located on the ground floor inside the Casa della Memoria (House of Memory), the museum has limited space and is strongly characterised by plant-related design and functional constraints.
This is why we designed a freestanding object with no structural support; a technological monolith, a black box, a treasure chest that could be the expressive memory, recounting all of the events of the resistance movement.
Therefore, a symbolic, archetypal element that is almost monumental, not so much for its size as for its suggestive nature; an object which could also serve as a custodian of past events and future intentions, a database where it is possible to find a mass of information and documentation on the subject. An element that can also fulfil the role of “motherboard” through which all the other Italian resistance museums could connect and set up a network.
Based on the geometry of a tetraicosagon, featuring walls the colour of “black reflective monitors”, the space is hollowed out to create an agora, completely lined in Italian walnut, in which it is possible to host events, debates, readings, and small concerts.
The two dimensions contrast strongly; the liquid and abstract dimension of historical information, which is activated on the black walls of the external perimeter through a series of devices given to each visitor, and the mnemonic material dimension sheltered within the technological material, as if the future had a historical heart.
Following the metaphor of the walnut, we could summarise that the shell represents contemporaneity while the hull represents tradition.
The project also consists of an external component in which the Giardino della Costituzione will be created, conceived as the natural continuation of the Museo della Resistenza’s experiential pathway and an open public space that serves as a physical monument to the Italian Constitution.
