Text description provided by the architects. We developed the school as a long strip aligned with former railway station building, inflecting it slightly, in the middle, towards the north, to meet the locomotive repair workshop we intended for the bar/restaurant of the whole.
At this point of change in direction, that coincides with the entrance to the school atrium, was inserted, almost in the perpendicular, the auditorium, crossing the site. Taking advantage of the incline of the amphitheatre – which will descend, from the first floor towards the ground -, a generous half arch was created that, simultaneously marks, covers and protects the entrance, permitting the visual continuity of the volumetric progression of the building.
This axis, deep and complex, continues the alignment begun by the recent recuperation of the former station and goods platform that dramatized the space between the aforementioned pieces: the arch under the auditorium contributing to the continuation of a “metaphysical” atmosphere that the other arches – those of the station —, formerly announced.
The exterior arrangement will explore the sense of a “street” with the creation of stone pavements and with the painting of concrete walls, in dark red, so as to reinforce the longilinear dimension of the place.
The south windows will be apertures in a “bar code” sequence, filling the corridors with striped lighting.
At the west end there will be two metallic pavilions, with the same section of an existing stone building that housed the Historical Archives. They are “carriages”, slightly disordered, that will house a future Railway Museum.
