-
Architects: DAP Studio
- Area: 2443 m²
- Year: 2009
-
Photographs:Filippo Romano
-
Manufacturers: Forbo Flooring Systems, Artigo, Atlas Schindler, Bd Italia, Estel, Knauf
Text description provided by the architects. Cassano D’Adda Music Center is not only a building for improving musical culture, but it’s going to become the location for all the cultural activities of the city.
Music Center will be built in the city of Cassano d’Adda, between Milan and Bergamo, on the banks of the River Adda. Despite its small size, Cassano has a catchment area of approximately 160 000 people, so this project is meant to have a territorial role.
The area is near the main street from Milan to Treviglio, a few minutes from the center and from the beautiful Villa Borromeo, in a suburb characterized by constructions without value.
The building project wants to create a new urban center, a locus for the city and the neighborhood.
The placement of buildings in the master plan follows the lines of penetration of the area, it divides the lot into a private zone surrounded by residential buildings and a public one with the Music Center overlooking the square. This external space is composed of a few elements like a terraced parterre that connects the street to the building ground height and an arboreal volume in front of it, that works as an outer limit for the square itself.
The program is very complex, including different functions and spaces for a real flexibility of use: the foyer can accommodate, for example, events, exhibitions or little concerts like an internal square.
Near the lobby, a 300-seat auditorium and commercial spaces (like a cafeteria or a music store) without interior partitions can expand its activity in the adjacent spaces and operate independently from the Music Center.
A music school is located on the second floor, strictly connected with others functions and spaces.
The building is a compact volume of three floors and a basement on a rectangular base.
The compactness of press-formed perforated white metal covering of the first two levels, white painted, contrasts with a very porous interior. The foyer is a great hollow space that connect different levels and brings together all the activities. From this space comes out the aslope volume of the auditorium, defined by its interior and exterior coating made of white wooden splints.
This kind of porousness chosen for the interiors is the same for the black volume of the music school, which compactness is carved by six patios that bring light and air to the classrooms, allocated next to them like an external projections of the interior spaces. This disposition create a multipurpose connecting space.
The project has been developed after a participation process that involved local authorities, the school of music teachers, local acting companies, associations, and a representation of users.
The Center has been conceived as a house of music open to the community, a public place where people can meet and interact.
