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The opening final month of Palazzo Citterio in Milan marked the extension and rebranding of the Pinacoteca di Brera, the town’s most prestigious artwork museum. Famed for its assortment of Renaissance work—together with works by Donato Bramante, Piero della Francesca, Andrea Mantegna, Titian, and Tintoretto—the Pinacoteca, housed inside a former monastery and Jesuit faculty, is now one a part of the multi-site cultural complicated often called Grande Brera, which additionally includes a much-anticipated house devoted to Twentieth-century artwork throughout the Palazzo Citterio simply two doorways down the road. The third establishment comprising Grande Brera is Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense, considered one of Italy’s largest public libraries.
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Exhibition house. Picture © Walter Vecchio
The transformation of Palazzo Citterio, an 18th-century mansion, has been within the works for over 50 years, starting with structural and facade work within the Nineteen Seventies and persevering with within the Eighties with the design of below-grade exhibition and multifunctional areas by British architect James Stirling. The ultimate section of the challenge was realized by Milan- and Bologna-based Mario Cucinella Architects (MCA).
MCA curated the design for 2 of the three flooring of the palazzo, in addition to an exhibition accompanying the rebrand that particulars the complicated’s wealthy historic ties to the humanities and sciences.
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The palazzo courtyard-anchoring Tempietto. Picture © Walter Vecchio
“Palazzo Citterio isn’t a stand-alone constructing; it exists in shut relationship with its surrounding surroundings, changing into a part of a broader imaginative and prescient: a metropolis throughout the metropolis, a system that reveals the sweetness that inhabits it,” says MCA founder Mario Cucinella. “With this set up, characterised by modern interventions in dialogue with historical past, we aimed to form a brand new method of conceiving museums. The problem lies in making these areas a part of on a regular basis life, areas able to reflecting and narrating new methods of current collectively. On this method, Palazzo Citterio turns into a part of each day life—a spot to expertise magnificence in addition to neighborhood and connection.”
One such modern intervention is MCA’s 16-sided round wooden pavilion, tightly nestled throughout the palazzo’s courtyard and dubbed the Tempietto, which bridges the newly assembled areas of Grande Brera with its collections. As famous by MCA, the set up attracts inspiration from Raphael’s The Marriage of the Virgin, on show on the Pinacoteca, “whereas additionally representing a leap towards modernity.” With its “clear, rhythmic traces alternating between horizontal and vertical components,” the construction will be simply dissembled on web site if want be, and its ceiling of draped material goals to create calming lighting results that evoke a “sacred ambiance.”
The doorway corridor. Picture courtesy © Francesco Prandoni
The MCA-designed entrance corridor, anchored by a sinuous, multi-use sculptural desk, manufactured from wooden, with built-in seating that rests atop a metal base, additionally injects a way of modernity to Palazzo Citterio.
Unified by the Orto Botanico diBrera, a shared inner-block backyard and arboretum with an astronomical observatory, the brand new complicated neighbors the Quadrilatero della Moda, Milan’s famed trend district (the place By way of;Monte Napoleone serves as the primary drag), to supply a novel hyperlink between artwork, historical past, science, trend, and design. Sooner or later, Palazzo Citterio will characteristic a bistro with a view of the backyard.
The opening of Palazzo Citterio in early December helped the Pinacoteca surpass 500,000 annual guests for the primary time in its historical past. Throughout this author’s go to on a Sunday afternoon in January, crowds of museum-goers ambled in regards to the Tempietto and perused the brand new exhibition. Given the ample curiosity from locals and vacationers alike, superior registration is inspired.
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