by Mario Bellini / Bologne, Italy 

The court and the tower

The most relevant architectural project to the design of Mario Bellini regards the court. It has in the past been the subject of numerous and heavy interventions that have completely distorted the original appearance is that the possibilities of use. The project incorporates the potential of this empty space, to which the glass roof gives the added value of new urban space covered. This value is enhanced by the presence of the volume of glass and steel that is located in the center of the courtyard of the palace, which is connected with three runways. “A kind of magic lantern - as Mario Bellini explains - lit from above by natural light filtering through the transparent roof”. Posted in space with axes rotated with respect to the performance of the walls of the court itself, the new volume is divided into three levels with function of both horizontal and vertical connection between the levels of the Museum and the exhibition. It is made of steel and glass, and visually split into four “towers” of glass, that are projected upward emerging from the glass roof, separated by corridors from which depart the catwalks. The large sheets of glass that line the “towers” are treated with a screen print screen dots gradually, more and more dense as they go up in altitude: so, starting from the total transparency of the glass on the ground floor, but you get the complete “bright” opacity of white plates on the top level. The effect is that of a progressive “dematerialization” down the volume of the tower and of a progressive” thicken “ of this upward, without losing the value of the translucent glass, also present in the floors and ceilings backlit. Exhibition design. The design principle of the preparation of the new Museum of the city of Bologna, as pointed out by Bellini that has experienced numerous “stagings” of museums and exhibitions, is based on “strict separation between the container (in this case the halls of the Palazzo Pepoli) and content (the unit museological), having as its goal to enhance the autonomy of the works compared to the environments that ‘host’ them and thus avoid reducing them to ‘furniture’ of the palace as well as any incongruous contamination”.

Project partners:

» Studio Base 2

» PUSTERLA Marmi S.n.c.

» Tecton Soc. Coop