We like to think of the built environment as a blackboard where time engraves its textures. Leaving traces, eroding materiality, carving modifications, substitutions, demolitions, time inhabits the buildings translating the space of memory into the space of contemporary, as it happens when a book is translated from a time to another one.
The main stair / Scala 'alla leonardesca'
© C+S Architects . Published on January 21, 2014.
Transformations are necessary actions in order to let the building survive and avoiding for the building to be turned into a ruin, as Ruskin writes in The Lamp of Memory. These necessary transformations are new layers to stratify on its surfaces, some of them manifested, some others hidden, but all of them necessary to inhabit the building in a contemporary and sustainable way.
The main stair / La scala 'alla leonardesca'
© C+S Architects . Published on January 21, 2014.
Repairing and translating are the two words which guided our work for the reuse of Palazzo Citterio in Milan, an originally 16th century complex, with an uncompleted intervention by James Stirling. Repairing is for us interesting for the complexity that the term has in its diverse meanings: protect, defend, preserve, but also adjust, take shelter, refuge.
The courtyard / Vista della corte
© C+S Architects . Published on January 21, 2014.
In these broader senses it is the story of the human kind who builds the city to repair at the same time taking care of the city itself.
Night view of the courtyard / Vista notturna del giardino
© C+S Architects . Published on January 21, 2014.
Translate means to choose what and how to operate and how to inhabit the spaces. Having worked frequently on either buildings or parts of the city which have already undergone processes of transformations, we believe that design is an act of translation which at the same time takes care of the existing but also becomes an expression of our cultural moment.
The external stair / La scala esterna
© C+S Architects . Published on January 21, 2014.
Our ‘liquid modernity’, to use Bauman’s definition, constantly pushes us to use a series of tools, ‘adaptors’, through which we connect different spaces and times. The notion of the adaptor is particularly strong to explain our design approach. The adaptor can be considered in fact as a physical configuration of a translation.
Detail of the main stair / Dettaglio della scala principale
© C+S Architects . Published on January 21, 2014.
The word is composed of two syllables, ad and apt. We interpret apt as a soft technological element, an infrastructure necessary for a dialogue between incompatible systems. It allows connections and creates understanding without threatening the identity of each system. Ad is understood as both an addition and an advertisement, related to communication and manipulation.
Plan and sections / Piante e sezioni
© C+S Architects . Published on January 21, 2014.
Our adaptors are thin structures, designed to house the systems or to distribute the flows of people. They are interferences designed as discreet counterpoints to what is existing. The choice was to add an adaptor, to wire the huge space. The adaptor is built of a filigree of timber blades where all the systems are housed in connection with a new wired floor in smooth concrete, flexible to accept different exhibitions’ layouts.
Stirling's underground space / La sala ipogea di Stirling
© C+S Architects . Published on January 21, 2014.
Stirling’s exposed concrete is kept visible though the depth of the timber blades, which concurrently reforms the acoustic response of the space, where currently the sound bounces badly off the hard exposed concrete surfaces of the ceiling, the walls and the floor. The adaptor gives us back a multifunctional space, able to be activated and perfectly responding to the acoustic standards required by the codes. Around the perimeter of the room, all the ventilation ducts are hidden by the shadows created between the existing sharp finishing of the concrete and the soft heads of the wood blades.
This solution lets us preserve Stirling’s central column and column head, not only its materiality, as for the surrounding walls, but also its geometry and proportions well declared in the proposal drawings.
An attentive eye can always search traces behind the surface and, getting itself use to the shadow, admire the beauty of the concrete made wall. This beauty will be revealed only though the shadow, being invisible to whom is not looking for it. Within the palace building a new stair is the adaptor to connect Stirling’s addition to the restoration of the palace. Above this space is an outside small garden, which is the counterpoint of the underground intervention.
Landscape design is a strong part of our conceptual work with the adaptors as it serves to offer the necessary materiality to merge it with the specificity of the context.
The work of mapping involved different scales to what we define ‘the map of potentialities’ which guided the project of punctual physical interventions as in a process of acupuncture.
Our design binds together existing and potential open programs to be activated by the inhabitants. The courtyard becomes the connection between the general restoration of Palazzo Citterio and James Stirling’s intervention, as it was in Stirling’s original concept.
A new flooring is introduced in order to provide a structural reinforcement of the existing vaults of the underground space of the historic part of the palace, while water and seats compete the roof of Stirling’s addition.
Italiano Ci piace pensare lo spazio costruito come una lavagna dove il tempo incide le sue trame.
Lasciando una patina, sottraendo materia, incidendo trasformazioni, sostituzioni, demolizioni al costruito, il tempo abita gli edifici traducendo lo spazio di memoria in spazio contemporaneo, come un libro traghettato da una cultura a un’altra, da un tempo a un altro.
Abitare un edificio è provare l’esperienza che trasmette e, allo stesso tempo, modificarlo aggiungendo quei nuovi layers necessari a tenerlo in vita. Layers che si stratificano nelle sue murature, nelle sue volte, nei suoi soffitti e nei suoi pavimenti.
Riparare e tradurre sono le parole che sintetizzano la filosofia di questo progetto. Riparare ci interessa per la complessità che racchiude. Nelle diverse accezioni di proteggere, difendere, preservare, ma anche aggiustare o infine ricoverarsi, rifugiarsi. Tradurre significa scegliere cosa e come operare per abitare gli spazi.
Come traduttori, piuttosto che come attori siamo autori silenziosi, ma necessari. Innestandosi sempre in un contesto già soggetto a processi di trasformazione, il progetto è per noi un atto di traduzione capace di traghettare la memoria verso il contemporaneo, servire e preservare la storia, mentre serviamo e preserviamo la nostra cultura.
La società liquida che abitiamo, l’epoca dell’accesso, per usare rispettivamente le parole di Baumann o Rifkin, ci obbliga ad usare continuamente una serie di strumenti che ci permettono di tradurre i contesti a cui, da nomadi in movimento, siamo costretti ad adattarci. Il progetto è l’innesto di un nuovo layer di ‘adattatori’ capaci di stabilire un contatto interculturale tra lo spazio che abbiamo ereditato e le forme e la tecnologia contemporanee. Gli adattatori sono strutture sottili, disegnate per trasportare i flussi necessari ad ospitare lo svolgersi della vita a Palazzo Citterio, sono interferenze che fanno da contrappunto discreto alle emergenze che raccontano la Storia.