democratizing a neighborhood
Open Ground
Quartiere Flaminio, Rome.
Flaminio is a mainly residential area north of the city center sprinkled with modern and contemporary architectural gems – Villagio Olimpico, Parco Della Musica, Palazzetto dello sport, MAXXI, Ponte della Musica. It is touted as the new cultural sector of Rome. Its wide boulevards are flanked by high walls, private yards, and a lack of shops and cafes at street level. The blocks are large and movement within requires extensive circumnavigation. As cultural institutions move in, supposedly public, but in actuality for an exclusive public, the urban fabric risks becoming ever less porous.
The abandoned barracks in front of the MAXXI Museum served as a site for an ambitious program of 27,000 square meters of archives, artists’ residences, and commercial spaces. With a surface area of 10,000 square meters to work with, my priority was to democratize the site by completely liberating the ground plane. Taking cues from the Paulista School, the building has no doors.
The precious archives are contained within a “jewelry box” embedded in the ground and on display, with related functions wrapping around and looking upon it. The ground plane is open, with a stepping theater offering glimpses into the “jewelry box” below. Suspended above, the classrooms, a library, a restaurant, and the residences, wrap around the prized central plaza, looking in. With the intent of generating spatial continuity, the six levels are linked by a system of ramps. This circulation system favors continuous routes, slows down the experience of the building, and increases the degree of interaction among those who use it.