{"id":22300,"date":"2014-09-10T20:31:51","date_gmt":"2014-09-10T18:31:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.area-arch.it\/palazzo-del-commercio-2\/"},"modified":"2016-01-26T18:22:31","modified_gmt":"2016-01-26T17:22:31","slug":"palazzo-del-commercio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.area-arch.it\/en\/palazzo-del-commercio\/","title":{"rendered":"Palazzo del commercio"},"content":{"rendered":"

Something enormous, a huge box distributed on two levels, two hundred and fifty metres long, seventy wide and ten tall: this was the starting point. A shopping mall, like so many others Italy, but in a very fascinating location, in a rural area crossed by the Via Appia, a few kilometres from the Medieval fortress of Montesarchio, not far from Benevento. The surrounding old industrial sheds contribute to give this imposing scenario an atmosphere of abandon. The idea was simple: to build about sixty thousand square meters on three floors: an underground level for parking, excavated like a ditch, a shopping gallery on the ground floor supported by a forest of columns based in the parking area and surrounded by a kilometre-long succession of rusticated ashlars in grey concrete.
\nOn the first floor, finally, a long loggia of rectangular pillars drop asymmetrically, setting the rhythm of the external facades like terraces, while a number of patios within illuminate areas dedicated to service activities and offices. Five kinds of panels in a casual arrangement form the immense shell, an imposing architectural form which, echoing Italian Renaissance palazzos and many military architectures, gives this building of quite strange proportions, determined by abstract indexes, a severe and powerful character. This is how I have envisaged a palazzo dedicated to commerce, like a fortification with two very conspicuous and slender entrances. It is a matter of true fauces, imagined as if they were to swallow the consumers and expel them after their trip along the annular itinerary of the square. Inside a colourful environment distinguishes the shopping galleries and the two squares, characterized by the escalators in a scissor arrangement which connect the parking floor to the heart of the building. A white, essential and austere staircase leads to the office floor, where rough and essential materials again prevail. A contemporary palazzo, an elaboration of the idea of monument, stylized to resume a subtle dialogue with the old medieval fortresses of the Benevento district, with the reliefs of the Taburno and the Partenio, an exchange that has been cancelled by a linear city, built without epos and without secrets.<\/p>\n