Casa-Museo in Milan

Italy (2024)

LPA Collaborators: Enzo Maria Serafini, Elettra Felicissimo

Photo Credits: Cristopher Ghioldi, Studio LPA

Description

We entered the silversmith’s workshop for first time, from a courtyard with an iron canopy to a large space, covered with a sawtooth shed roof and with a wall at the end with arches that was vaguely ecclesiastical, a strange mix of workshop and almost church.
The complex articulation of the spaces and the disordered structural elements determined the choice of a circular and enveloping gesture as the primary design idea.
As in all our projects, the primary idea generates and governs all subsequent choices.
An initial solution based on a single circular trajectory evolved into the use of two open circumferences with translated centers ,which dynamises the geometry, generating new spatial energy. The two circumferences structure the space functionally and formally and the trajectories generated by them expand it.

A single, large fluid space with domestic, exhibition and theatrical functions was the brief entrusted to us by the client. Domestic because it is a real home, exhibition because it is the place where a collection that is an emanation and portrait of the client must live and be displayed, and theatrical, because it is a place open to the public for cultural events.
The taller part of the space has a mezzanine that contains all the domestic functions of contemporary living, everything is fluid and continuous, with long, dynamic visual axes. The spaces can be closed with doors that disappear or with curtains that retract.

The walls, the long shelves, the walkway and its balustrade create the exhibition areas (about 1000 square meters ) for photos and sculptures, an important design collection animates the spaces responding to the functional needs.
The stairs, the gallery between the mezzanine and the terrace and the sunken conversation pit all constitute a system of seating, a contemporary cavea, intended for the public who will participate in the cultural events that will be shared with the city.
The search for new light sources generated skylights with UV film and the opening of an entire wall determined the birth of a courtyard that separates the main living area from the wing reserved for guests. Light and sky are present in every space.
Columns and portals organise the space formally and structurally, integrated with elements of furniture. The portals frame and order the various moments of private life as if creating a film sequence, in which life flows from one scene to another.
The complex structural and technical interventions have consolidated, insulated, soundproofed all the spaces meeting all contemporary requirements for energy efficiency and sustainability as well as satisfying the correct conservation requirements of a delicate collection of photographs.
Two secret and fascinating spaces complete the intervention: the vault houses the archive/storage of the collection and a dark pool and spa integrates the function of relaxation.
An intense and joyful collaboration with the clients generated a dynamic but serene and welcoming space in which art, photography, design and architecture come together in a perfect balance.