Building a workplace with the desire to re-establish the link between nature and architecture, Guido Canali (in collaboration with the Prada group since 1998) has pursued the image of a dynamic space and has created an innovative structure which is characterized by the need to re-establish apotropaic contact between the user and the surrounding landscape.
The quest for unexpected, spontaneous beauty and signs of unrestricted nature accompany the harmony created by the sense of incompletion that can be reread in the traces of the project area, and which enhances the composition of wellcalibrated spaces where nothing is left to chance. Valvigna is an intervention that has expanded over the years and with the addition of adjoining areas during the construction process has given the designer a complexity of extraordinary results and an unparalleled and meticulous level of control.
The functional organization involves the insertion of four buildings each of which contains the distribution areas of the manufacturing processes in a unique system with differing heights. These then figuratively try to establish a continuous relationship with the exterior. Terraces, new soils and claddings are the design expedients of a building created around a perception of beauty which does not deny its sustainable character and respect for the environment.
The green areas follow each other in a rhythm marked by patios, pools of water and slashes of light in which the sky clearly penetrates the furthermost limits of the building, even inside. The factory and the house thereby merge to become a temple for human beings, clear symbols of a unique space where it is possible to rediscover well-being and inner balance.
Project Prada Valvigna
Arch. Canali Associati
Location Arezzo, Italy
Year 2017
Ph. Alessandro Ciampi, Luca Roti and Gabriele Croppi
Author Maria Gelvi
BIOGRAPHY
GUIDO CANALI IS PROFESSOR OF ARCHITECTURAL COMPOSITION AT THE ARCHITECTURE INSTITUTE OF VENICE AND FERRARA AND AN ACADEMICIAN AT SAN LUCA AND FINE ARTS IN PARMA. HE FOUNDED AND RUNS CANALI ASSOCIATI AND THROUGH POWERFUL RESTORATION AND DESIGN WORK, HAS BEEN COMMITTED FOR YEARS TO THE RECREATION OF A NUMBER OF EXTRAORDINARY HISTORICAL COMPLEXES.
MAIN PROJECTS
. Palazzo della Pilotta (extension of the National Gallery, renovation of the seventeenth century ground floor
. Stables and the Cortile del Guazzatoio in various stages), Parma, Italy, 1990
. Restoration and reclamation of the former hospital complex of Santa Maria della Scala, Siena, Italy
. Opera del Duomo Museum within the Palazzo Reale, Milan, Italy, 2013
. Museum of the Statue-Stele in the Castello del Piagnaro, Pontremoli (MS), Italy
. Smeg Offices, Guastalla (RE), Italy, 2004
. Pinko, Fidenza (PR), Italy
. Gran Sasso Shopping Centre, Teramo, Italy
