Glass.architettura.urbanistica, Venaria Reale (TO)

The exhibition is very extensive, winding along a route almost a kilometre in length. There are around 400 exhibits spread across 47 rooms: the displays have been individually designed to ensure that each piece is presented effectively and that the mounting is in harmony with the historic architecture. The exhibition starts impressively with the display in the large vaulted hall. This incorporates a wide metal footbridge flanked by two corridors faced with mirrors down to the floor. The aim of this complex display was to create a space where the mirrors double the dimensions, making it seems that the whole room and its vaults are a metaphysical space through which wind the House of Savoy's thousand years of history. Display panels, some curving at the base to reflect the vaults above, have also been used in the great hall. These are a feature as well of the layout in the basement; they are faced with an industrial metal mesh that brings to mind the armour, iron and the noise of battle. The basement houses service spaces, albeit ones in a magnificent architectural style. The design of the layout here is therefore powerful and concrete: it is made up of glimmerings and shadows heightened by the lighting and contrasting with the brickwork and half-light of the setting. In the room above, the architecture of the Reggia takes centre stage: the design of the display here is much more discreet, to the point of being invisible.

Exhibition design for “I Savoia, una dinastia in Europa”, the inaugural exhibition for the opening of the Reggia di Venaria Reale, Turin
Architects: Giorgio Lombardi, Glass.architettura.urbanistica, with Daniela Ferretti, LSB Architetti Associati
Assistence: Alessandro Deana
Client: Regione Piemonte and Castello di Rivoli
Graphic design: Camplani+Pescolderung and Studio Tapiro
Lighting design: Gigi Saccomandi
Model of Turin: Vera Cornoli, Paolo Cornaglia and Filippo Mastinu (design); Filippo Mastinu and Alioscia Mozzato (construction)
Paper clothes: Isabelle de Borchgrave
Construction firm: Gruppo Bodino
Design phase: 2006
Construction phase: 2007

Glass.architettura.urbanistica, Venaria Reale (TO)

The architecture of the Reggia provides an evocative setting for Studio Glass's design for the layout of this exhibition on the House of Savoy's thousand years of history. Photo Italo Rondinella

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