Milano (MI), Italia

Museo Diocesano Competition

Marco Cerri, Kazuyo Sejima & Ryue Nishizawa - Sanaa

The site is currently a schism in the city, a collection of disparate elements that interrupt the urbanism of the area. The proposed extension seeks to reengage the area with its surroundings, restoring harmony to the disrupted urban framework. The proposed extension is multifaceted, opening to all directions and establishing a panoramic space of interaction, rather than an enclosure of the museum. It presents itself as an extroverted space that draws the public towards its activities, through the site and beyond. It rests in a pivotal intersection between park and residential-commercial areas and reflects this volumetrically. Two buildings are envisaged, one designed to the scale of the street and the other acting as a transparent opening that frames the existing museum cloister and establishes a visual and physical connection between Corso di Porta Ticinese and Parco delle Basiliche.

This glass reception volume echoes the structure of the Basilica SantEustorgio and the existing Museo Diocesano by creating a variation on the cloister typology. Reversing the traditional introversion of such spaces, the public character of the museum would stand in contrast to the intimate character of the church cloister. Walking through this reception and education area the view of the city unfolds in all directions, reflected, refracted and porous. Thin columns 8cm diameter randomly distributed through the structure creates the third in a series columned gardens that leave a distinctive mark on the Milanese urban fabric. The transparency of the building reflects the emptiness that remained as a result of wartime destruction. The remnants of the old cloister are seen from the surrounding area as they close around a low volume that dissolves into the landscape that adjoins it. The building completes the cloister without disguising the break in continuity.

The gallery spaces are shifted away and hidden from the existing volume to maintain its harmonious proportions. The loft is under the main foyer space and the galleria raised above street level in a volume that moulds into the framework of the street. The two spaces are contrasting in proportion and character to provide a diversity of exhibition environments: the galleria is a vertical space 14m tall washed in diffuse natural light. The loft by contrast sits in the ground. When the louvers are open this space establishes a connection between underground and the park: it becomes possible to look up through the transparent volume above at the park and sky beyond. When the louvers are closed for an artificially lit exhibition or performance, the space, deep in the ground has an intimacy that stands in direct contrast to the animated opening that rests above it.

The proposed extension is conceived as a park. It touches the existing complex lightly: at the corners of the existing cloister, a thin roof hovering over a series of woven routes. Small gardens are at the heart of the urban typologies of which Basilica SantEustorgio is composed: the church piazza to the south and the cloisters to the north. The museum extension is conceived as a series of the gardens.

The small garden to the street establishes a public environment through the day and the night. When the museum and Parco delle Basiliche is shut at night, there remains an ungated natural piazza that works in combination with the Piazza SantEustorgio as another harmonius interruption in the predominantly pedestrian route between Porta Ticinese and the city centre.

The existing museum cloister is left untouched. It is the traditional counterpart to the other gardens, and permits a serene appreciation of the monastic architecture and the church beyond.

The reception building is an architectural landscape. The classrooms and seminar rooms act as transparent subdivisions that determine a winding route and the slope of the floor suggests a fluidity of movement like that of the park beyond. These spaces have acoustic curtains that allow them to retreat and become introverted environments, while the public continues to take their diverging paths through the building. When the rooms are not closed off the transparency of the glass permits an immediate orientation of the building.

Between the buildings a narrow path echoes the winding, tight spaces of Milanese urbanism and leads into an event space garden set back from both the park and the road to provide a demarcated outdoor environment. A glass corridor establishes a seamless route between the buildings and allows Parco delle Basiliche to be closed off at night without interrupting the spatial organisation of the proposed extension.

Towards the Parco delle Basiliche the gardens of the proposed extension begin to clear to provide depth of perspective from the street. From the park the view is open and through the low volume the cloister arcade and the street are visible, while the taller volume is masked by trees and by the reflective quality of its surface that begins to blur the boundary of the museum extension.

During the daytime the routes through the site are divergent. It becomes possible to pass through the foyer, through the café/ bookshop or through the event space gardens that wrap around and between the buildings. In the evenings when the museum is closed the café/bookshop acts as a route in itself, providing access to the park. When the park is closed at night the proposed building acts as a natural closure, but the park continues to be seen through the transparent building and the streetside garden provides an area a variation on the piazza culture.

Europaconcorsi Beta

Museo Diocesano Competition