1989 

MARCONI INSTITUTE FOR CRAF AND INDUSTRY

 

Workshop area

 

 

project start date

1989

construction

1990-2005

location

Prato, Italy

client

Prato City Council

architects

Marco Meozzi, Architect  - collaboration with Massimo Lastrucci, Architect

construction supervision

Marco Meozzi, Architect with Mario Ciatti, Consulting Engineer

structures

Giampiero Ciatti - Mario Ciatti - Enrico Ieri, Consulting Engineers

area

6,254 square meters

volume

24,592 cubic meters

cost

8,130,200,000 Lire

publications

- GUIDA ALLA PROGETTAZIONE - APPLICAZIONE E PARTICOLARI COSTRUTTIVI CON MATTONI

  A FACCIA VISTA - Edito a cura RDB- Casa Editrice Nuovo Giornale -Piacenza -1992 .p. 11

 

- PROGETTARE CON IL PORFIDO - Catalogo generale delle opere ammesse - concorso nazionale

  sull'utilizzo del Porfido- Trento - Aprile 1992  p.68

 

- LA PROGETTAZIONE ARCHITETTONICA E LE PUBBLICHE  AMMINISTRAZIONI - Quaderni di

  professione   architetto' - A  Linea Editrice - Firenze - Gennaio1993 pp.64-65

 

- LABORATORIO COMUNE  Idee ed architetture  del Settore edilizia Pubblica del Comune di Prato-

  2000 Electa - Milano - pp.66-73

 

- ARCHITETTURE NEW ZEALAND No. 3-2007 pp.102-104 &106

photo

Alessandro Ciampi

web

www.comune.prato.it/architettura

 

http://archi-europe.com/architect-profile-22222292-Marco_Meozzi.html

               

                                                               

 

One can think of a school building as a metaphor of the city - a building that becomes the formal expression of the process of knowledge and not be a monument to fixed, certain truths. It should be place of knowledge, of history, of interaction, of relationships, of exchange. However, in our age, this concept of the city has been lost. We have also lost the concept of urban space as the synthesis of ‘open’ versus ‘closed’ contradictions in our society. The design of this building explored several references to the city: the grid; the piazza; the street; the walls; the towers; the porticos; the fountain. The exterior wall that by all appearances wants to defend the building, in reality dissolves and becomes entrance and passage. The shell becomes broken. The openings that seem to negate the wall, in reality explore the nature of the solidity of the mass and the abstraction of the voids. The interior walls utilize the same materials as the exterior walls. In fact, they are the same exterior walls which enter the building and develop an ambiguous relationship - an ambiguity both of the forms and of the diversity of the materials. 

The ancient system of construction, the brick arch converses with the large windows permitted by the modern technology of reinforced concrete and metal. Heavy structures in brick masonry confront a lighter structures of aluminum and glass in a open system of opposing styles, materials and cultures. The partition of three distinct square bodies united on the diagonal at their vertices is based on ancient roman agricultural patterns. Within each square there is a different function: classrooms, workshop and gymnasium.