During an evening held at the Ordine degli Architetti in Milan, David Chipperfield illustrated his project for the Ansaldo. He also talked about what makes a good museum and the advantages and disadvantages regarding designing and building in Italy.

From words to actions. The project for the city of cultures to be built in the ex industrial buildings in Milan of Ansaldo, is moving ahead at a pace. This much in demonstrated by the new set of drawings submitted to the council a few days ago by David Chipperfield. It was also registered at the meeting held a few days ago at the Ordine degli Architetti in Milan to look into the project, where the assessor for culture, Salvatore Carrubba, stated “It is a complex project from an architectural and financial point of view – a budget of 200 billion lire – which brings together a study centre for visual arts, an archaeological and prehistorical museum and a centre for culture from outside Europe”. It is also one of many ambitious cultural plans – including the library at Porta Vittoria and the Arengario – which the Lombardy capital has lined up. “And which”, assures Carrubba, “are all going ahead, to the point that a circuit of confidence is being created on the part of many citizens who come forward and want to donate their collections to the public administration”.

To talk about the project was British architect David Chipperfield, who also took the opportunity to explain his vision of the contemporary museum. We are light years away from the showiness of the Guggenheim at Bilbao – the Ansaldo project is one conceived in an existing urban context and this context has been greatly considered. “Its quality is secret, as is the case for most of the buildings in Milan, where the most interesting spaces are found inside the courtyards”, relates the architect.

Nothing looks out onto the street, the building complex is developed inside a perimeter of existing buildings, around a central courtyard with a curious flower like or amoeba shape. “The advantage of this is to have a kind of orientation space, a place of transition between the outside world and the museum areas, a space which can also be used for collateral events open to the public which are not necessarily exhibitions”.

Chipperfield describes the building as “an onion”; the public area is the outside layer, gradually moving through the galleries you move deeper into it. It is accessed at ground floor level – a kind of transparent plinth in glass and mirror, whilst the rest is clad in titanium zinc – to then, via a series of complementary activities which exploit both the entrance and exit of the museum (ticket office, bookshop, library…), move up to the first floor where the main exhibition rooms and the auditorium lie. On the top floor a restaurant faces onto the courtyard which may be used independently from the rest of the building.

The working drawings should be ready by the spring of 2003 after which a contractor will be appointed and building work will then take around three years. A lengthy procedure then for the city of cultures, especially if one thinks that the contract was signed in 2000 and the opening will probably not be until 2007. “I like working in Italy very much”, continues Chipperfield who has won a number of competitions, as well as in Milan also in Salerno, Verona and Venice, “because there is a great willingness to discuss, to create an interesting and stimulating debate regarding architecture. The competition system is also something which works well. Even though, to make a comparison with a nearby country, if you win a competition in Spain after a year you see it built, if you win one in Italy after a couple of years you might find yourself at the Ordine Degli Architetti to talk about it in a conference”.

“The ‘exciting’ museum which attracts tourists but which is detached from the city context, isn’t really what it’s all about”, concludes the British architect. “What really counts for an exhibition building is to be a resource for those living in the city, a point of reference, of meeting and exchange. We should not lose sight then of other fundamental responsibilities, those regarding education and the collection. It is necessary to find a balance in the way a museum presents itself, to not be such a drain on resources, we have to be inventive also about how to make these things work in an educational way and a popular way” The main aim of a museum? “To be able to attract someone who has already been there ten times, to make a collection of archaeological findings interesting every week. These are the problems to resolve”.