Competition
Cultural centre
Mention
Concept design
Cuneo, Italy
2020
Not built
Baumatte
The competition brief asks to re-use the old Cuneo military cold store warehouse by designing a cultural centre. The ruin is severely derelict, and only the perimetral walls may be retained. Yet, a nostalgic scenery doesn’t seem to be solid enough to support the design rationale. Furthermore, the need for an underground car park would mean enormous expenses for digging and shoring up. Instead of working on the found object we opt for a radical strategy: a new architecture replaces the existing one. Three principles organise its functions and instate a dialogue with the historic centre: the migration of an architectural form, the transfiguration of the long warehouse hall and of its function, from material to immaterial; the media façade, a steel landscape-enhancing analogic device which samples and mirrors everchanging urban scenes, weather conditions, dynamic presences; the synchronism of activities, the overlapping of multiple functional programmes allowed by flexible spaces, autonomous paths and connections with the public realm. The project concept received a special mention