The intervention is not only a project to recover a deconsecrated and abandoned church for contemporary use, undertaken for the Parma Urban Center association with limited resources and a lot of determination. It is also a declaration of intent as to how the project can dialogue through distinctive differences with the historic by enhancing what it discovers in a process of reciprocity, accepting the marks of time as a historical and contemporary value, considering it an even more current expression. The need for a flexible space for exhibitions, conferences and meetings was balanced with the need to maintain a protective distance from the architectural relic that we wanted to reopen to the city. That physical distance also becomes a critical distance and a dialogue of mutual enrichment. The encounter with Claudio Parmiggiani and the memory of his Glass Labyrinth arranged and shattered in the Teatro Farnese a few years earlier prompted a solution that would connect the memory of the ruined architecture and its dust with a completely transparent and blatantly contemporary system. The system of ultra-clear shatterproof glass panes is arranged in the space, regularising the shapes of the elliptical central plan of the triple-height space and the apse with its niches. The invisible walls are anchored to the ground by a continuous matt steel foot and supported by glass fins glued transversely at the joints. At the top of the panes, objects to be displayed are hung with nylon thread, while prints and adhesive films can be applied to the smooth surface. Beyond the intermediate cornice of the church, a series of spotlights highlight the dome, the frescoed pendentives, the statues in the niches. They can also highlight speakers as well as the contents of exhibitions, displayed on the glass and suspended above the ruin.
Comune di Parma
Parma, 2010
Photography Nicola Seriati, Carlo Gardini & Patrizia Ferrari
