The adaptation of the historic building as a space for contemporary art was a critical exercise on the theme of the museum and the central question of the character of architecture. The work, carried out in conjunction with artist Claudio Parmiggiani, involved a series of adjustments to the earlier restoration. The project is concerned with recovering the original identity of this architecture that has almost been hidden by work carried out, and with removing, reducing and limiting the presence and intensity of lighting fixtures along the exhibition route. The building is rediscovered through the elimination or concealment of technical equipment and spatial and chromatic interference. A recomposition of the original balances through which, even by simply following the sequence of the rooms, the remarkable quality of the perceptual experience in which art, city and architecture multiply each other’s value is developed. The opening of the large windows of the palace (previously closed to create an exhibition space isolated from its context) revives not only the relationship with light but also the dialectic of visual and perceptive relationships with the surroundings. The Governor's palace is in fact a fusion of two medieval structures that stood on the edge of the former empty space of the forum. The tower designed by Petitot in the 18th century in the centre of the façade closes of a narrow urban street. The Gallery that still runs through the centre of the palace is the remains of this street. The palace is an architecturally recomposed city and maintains the character and spatial values of that morphological layout. The central space is an atypical merging – over its various levels – of two buildings arranged according to the system of the enfilade or internal corridors. From the various points of this architectural recomposition, there are glimpses of the Town Hall, the architectural backdrop of Piazza Garibaldi on one side, and the small square behind it and its main monument, the 16th-century Steccata, on the other.
Comune di Parma
Parma, 2009
Fotografie di Lucio e Silvia Rossi
