IPZS

The design maintains a continuous relationship between a new addition and an existing historical building – the first Mint in the Kingdom of Italy, situated in Rome’s Esquilino district. The design is a rescripting that respects the listed building and its role as an urban and symbolic reference. Left in its original configuration, the building is restored and optimised and coupled with freer interventions involving only those elements added and transformed successively.

Maximum flexibility of spaces and circulation drives the choices made for this building, whose different functions exist in an autonomous dialogue whose coherency lies in architectural choices, technical solutions and internal fitout. A combination of modern and contemporary.

At the ground floor, two entrances lead to the courtyards, the fulcra of the macrosystems of the new complex: the Arts Hub and the Craft Hub. The Arts Hub is home to permanent and temporary exhibitions, as well as an audio installation on the site of the former chimney, in memory of the sound produced by industrial machinery. An internal path leads to the second courtyard, surrounded by craft-related activities, the congress centre and F&B areas; the restoration of the pavilion with its concrete trestles and the valorisation of the gantry crane define a space inspired by the theme of the Factory.

On the first floor the interventions become more consistent. In the two side wings the project proposes the complete transformation of the internal layout, maintaining only the external walls and decorations. A glass volume set against the counter-façade becomes a new element of circulation leading to the reading room. This latter assumes an important role within the project: this triple height space with a glass roof ensures visual contact among the various users of the complex.

The finish of the new spiral volume references the gold and bronze of medals and historic coins, whose designs are reprinted on the surface by patterning the micro-perforation of metal sheets.