projects | Viabizzuno progettiamo la luce

Viabizzuno lights up gres art 671, a new art and culture centre which, promoted by initiative of the Italmobiliare Group with Fondazione Pesenti, breathes new life into one of the most significant buildings of the former Grès complex in Bergamo. The project, launched in the year of Bergamo Brescia Capital of Culture 2023, and part of a broader urban regeneration project by the architectural firm De8_Architetti, is designed to recover, enhance and return to the entire community an architectural memory of the Italian industrial heritage, according to an innovative urban development model capable of combining architectural quality, the social aims of many planned destinations and economic balance. The architectural volume, which is the outcome of the convergence of two industrial sheds with vaulted roofs on an exposed concrete structure of historic and valuable workmanship, has defined the multifunctional programme of the new cultural production space in its impressive heights and suggestive balance of light and shade. The lighting design, developed by marionanni with Viabizzuno, interprets the spirit of the place by combining quality of light, installation flexibility and durability. The sophisticated track grid - a transposition of electrowelded mesh into light - combines diffused, functional and homogeneous light with accent lighting, concealing the infrastructural part. Moreover, it defines progressive functional areas through precise management of Viabizzuno points of light to create specific lighting effects on each work displayed and future mise-en-scène. The choice of two families of light solutions, n55 and linea di luce - on a1, a10 and a11 tracks, in turn installed on 500 metres of ariacablata - conveys aesthetic uniformity to the installation. The chosen colour temperature of 3000K and the high quality parameters of the light further enhance the emotional power of the space, highlighting the materials chosen by Locatelli Partners and underscoring the rough character and time worn surfaces of the previous architecture. The garden, the backdrop of the exhibition space and also an environment to be experienced, is the outcome of the collaboration between De8_Architetti and landscape architect Laura Gatti, illuminated with campanula scurodivals floor standing and suspension versions - designed for Viabizzuno by the master of architecture Peter Zumthor -, whose sinuous shape contributes to define the magical character of the place. A solemn promenade leads to the building, punctuated by 8-metre high gonfalone poles with nett uno floodlights combined with special night-black testapalo, gradually revealing, in an ascending climax, the silhouette of the solis silos, and then the large public foyer - also lit up with nett uno floodlights -, the first stage of a path centred on aggregation, culture and exchange.