A collage of old and new
Successful Update: Art Gallery near Vicenza
Entrance Gallery Atipografia, © Simone Bossi
For the Atipografia gallery in the Upper Italian town of Arzignano, Amaa have repurposed an old printing workshop and integrated it into an art parcours that is rich in discoveries.
© Simone Bossi
Many roads lead to art, or so they say. The road to the Atipografia Gallery is as diverse and rich in discovery as any other. The “Threshold and Treasure House” is the architects’ design motto. Visitors enter the grounds, which are situated in a rear courtyard in the middle of the town, through an exposed-concrete gate that takes up most of the width of the lot (the first threshold). They then cross the front garden to reach the single-storey reception building (threshold number 2), which serves as an axis between the various new and existing buildings.
A hall-like space featuring dark-painted concrete supports and ceilings greets the public, leading them to the old home of the printing workshop with its ceiling of exposed wooden joists. This third threshold – between old and new – is less spacious as it seems thanks to the various surface materials. Via a U-shaped porch of steel and glass, the hall and printing workshop open into a gravelled inner courtyard with sculptures by the artist Mattia Bosco.
© Simone Bossi
A green oasis
To the left of the front garden, visitors enter the home of the former workshop owner, where guests of the gallery now reside as artists in residence. Beside this, an exterior stairway leads to the planted roof of the reception building (the fourth threshold). The architects compare this green oasis on the first upper level with a panopticon from which the panorama of the anonymous surrounding residential architecture can be admired.
© Simone Bossi
There is one final threshold to cross: the one to the exposed-concrete studio building which Amaa has built over the historical printing shop. Oversized, shallow eaves channel the water off its shed roof. Inside, a single, undivided space opens up with a view of the rockery. Its abstract white walls and ceilings contrast with the scuffed wooden floors, which were taken from a day-care centre and bear visible traces of their former use.
Architecture: AMAA
Client: Atipografia (Elena Dal Molin)
Location: Via Campo Marzio, 26, 36071 Arzignano (IT)
Structural engineering: Claudio Lorenzetto
Landscape architecture: Angelo Renna
Building services engineering: Stefano Faggion, AIB
Contractor: Il Grifo
Gallery
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