Antico e Nuovo
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July 2024
San Cristoforo Convent, Mantova
TEAM:
Diego Armando Badillo Andrade
Marco Frassetto
Riccardo Giuseppe Meneghello
Aldo Rossi stated that a city is nothing but a society of buildings, each endowed with its own character.
This was the starting point for a project aimed at understanding the character and quality of the convent’s spaces. Listening to the building and responding to its architecture, allowing the project to be guided by it.
Every detail of the building is thus reinterpreted as a clue, the manifestation of a possibility: from the overall structure of the spaces and their sequence to the mural paintings by children who once played in the corridors, the light bouncing off the white walls of a courtyard, and its entrance into a cellar filled with objects.
Gradually, the initial project proposals are stripped down, losing elements, as a result of a deeper understanding of the intrinsic quality of each space, its inherent characteristics, and its role within the society of rooms that constitutes the building. The building’s structure remains almost entirely unchanged, revealing that only small architectural objects are necessary to bring it back to life; artifacts that suggest new ways of using the space: a door, a gazebo, a staircase for the underground museum, a beam, a well, and a tent. The new functions are embraced by the existing architecture: artist residences, studios, the Museum of Resistance, the public library, and the gardens.
Inside the church, all the material recovered from the few demolitions necessary to adapt the ex-convent to the new functions is exhibited. An ordered composition of raw modest materials, celebrated as part of the building's history and soul.
Model of the Artist's rooms at different times of the day
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