Something Strange Happened Here
Restoration of the “ex Generatori” building at the Arsenale Nord in Venice
A tall and square building faces the lagoon.
Resting against the perimeter wall, this icon is visible from a distance. It once contained the electrical generators of the twentieth century.
Overhead cranes, steel cisterns, electrical panels in marble and bronze now stand as rusted industrial relics to be conserved. The interior spaces and openings had to be redesigned to host the new entrance hall to the Northern Arsenale and the technical offices and meeting rooms of the Consorzio Venezia Nuova.
To bring air and light inside the building we opened up a number of brick walls to create ample windows protected by large cor-ten steel grilles set on vertical pivots.
Inside, four large vertical volumes contain offices and meeting rooms on four levels. Clad in natural aluminium, these “towers” are connected by glass walkways and aluminium stairs.
The architectural composition of the vertical volumes follows the form and articulation of the flows, of the internal movements that wind between the various levels.
This creates cuts and beams of light, inclined reflecting surfaces, suspended and overlapping canopies set on multiple levels that offer glimpses of portions of the existing brick skin. A game of “now you see it now you don’t”, of transparencies and “interferences” whose vast spatial complexity seduces the eye.
This architecture of interiors resembles an urban space, an urban project wrapped inside a building. An unfamiliar category that is born and grows only inside large existing containers.
Drawings
