Fondazione Bertarelli Inzu y'Ibitaramo

Press Kit

Unique Properties

The building, which will be built up from nothing, will be given an organic and perfect form by using golden proportions suitable for improving the acoustics, in order to avoid it from being too rigid, which would not make it fit in the environment created by the light and the patterns created by the wind.

Dimensions & Packaging

The main structure consisting of an underground part at a height of - 4.68 meters with a square and plant roof where the changing rooms and services are located;
the ovoid-shaped part of the central theatre from a height of - 4.68 to a height of 0.00 with the relative terraces, the stage and backstage, the side stairways, the entrance and, on the upper floor, height + 2.70, the director's mezzanine. The roof structure, up to an altitude of + 5.60 above ground.
The Forum has an overall volume of 7,813.34 cubic meters.

Tags

Forum Bertarelli, Bertarelli Concert Hall, Edoardo Milesi, Studio Archos

Production Technology

A single building consisting of two parts forming a single shape generated by a geometry inspired by the golden section: theatre and multipurpose hall. The main structure is coloured reinforced concrete, soundproofed, insulated and covered with insulating materials and bricks; gypsum plaster; flooring partly in parquet for the theatre, partly in Gress for the logistic parts and partly in industrial concrete for the technical parts; aluminum windows with thermal break, wooden communication doors and partitioning doors. The roof structure it is made of steel with double lens reticular beams; wooden roof structure and relative metal mantle; the wooden false ceiling. Foyer and distribution spaces located on the ground floor level consists of a CORTEN-type steel structure, with spaced portals. It has a roof with a wooden structure and a soundproofed and insulated metal mantle; internal plasterboard false ceiling; perimeter infill (service area only) in plastered brick; steel frames to protect the structures. The noble stone floors, both in the foyer area and in the cloakroom, toilet and office area. External areas: a blade consisting of a CORTEN steel metal structure guides the population from the approach area to the foyer area; the floors provided are in stone, a covered area with glazing outside the foyer is the refreshment area and stone and quarry stabilised paths will connect the theatre / foyer area to the parking area, suitably illuminated and still in the executive design phase.

Design Challenge

This is the task of the theatre designed for the Bertarelli Foundation on top of a hill in the Maremma. A concert hall for 350 people. From the sky it looks like a large olive still attached to its nearest leaf. I had never thought of such a result, although the concern of not harming the large olive grove that will host it has always been present.

Research

The Forum Fondazione Bertarelli originates from a thorough study of the settlement models in the inland of the Maremma plains. This 300-seat concert hall has an organic shape, perfectly self-contained and within the golden ratio, whose proportions were designed for non-mechanical acoustic amplification. From a distance as well as from close range, the Forum is not perceived as a building. Being free of openings, its rugged concrete surface with the earth tones of cement is reminiscent of a mound and fortified by wavy oxidised iron plate, which it partially envelops. Going uphill through an olive grove along the iron wall supporting the volume of the hall, we enter the foyer, one dematerialised space flooded by light where the outside landscape is again visible through a glass wall. The music hall can be seen with a single glance from above with the unique surface of the drum-shaped element on which rests the curved wings of the roof that laterally embrace the galleries and conceal the links to the various levels. From the sky, it looks like a big olive still attached to a leaf. The building is in the right position with respect to the views, the height of the pines, and the correct structural attitude on the current ground level, which should not be changed at all. The rain was pouring down and I attended a different concert. The orchestra didn't care about me when I got in the way among the musicians.
The curved iron plate next to the theatre on the sunset side, reminiscent of those used by Richard Serra, leads visitors inside and gradually takes them away from the outside sights, sounds and smells. It marks the limits of the olive grove that stretches to the large pines and it supports the slender iron plate structure, which, like a harp, lets visitors in to the concert.

Inspiration

The architecture of the concert hall, shaped according to its rational and poetic function, the task of letting instruments play, and the desire to convey emotions, listens and participates without disturbing; it is part of the orchestra and plays its role as a new musical instrument which improves the acoustics of the place. Aesthetic values are not perceived as added, they are part of the building and radiate from it.

Project Duration

The project started in June 2010 in Bergamo and finished in June 2013. The construction works have begun in June 2013 and finished in November 2014 in Poggi del Sasso, Grosseto, Italy

Operation Flow

A concert hall for 350 people, where amplification takes place exclusively thanks to the shape generated by golden proportions and natural materials. Surrounded only by nature on the slopes of Mount Amiata, it providentially replaces a subdivision plan which, in that very place, provided for a complex of nine residential buildings inspired, according to an unfortunately widespread practice, by mimicry and falsification of traditional buildings.

Patents

Copyrights belong to Edoardo Milesi & Archos, 2015

Image Credits

Image #1, Photographer Mauro Davoli, 2015
Image #2, Photographer Mauro Davoli, 2015
Image #3, Photographer Mauro Davoli, 2015
Image #4, Photographer Mauro Davoli, 2015
Image #5, Photographer Mauro Davoli, 2015