Among the young Italian designers who look more deeply at things, Francesca Torzo (Padua, 1975) interprets the lessons in history from the IUAV in Venice by perceiving architecture as a powerful medium, able to magnetise data and emotions and to connect worlds, stories and cultures that are seemingly distant from one another.

A small construction detail, the nuance of a cladding material or the sound of steps in space are thus all elements able to resound in memory as well as draw on the humus of cities, recalling deep-seated recollections as well as projecting themselves into future languages. As the architect herself points out, it is the recognition of these relationships, able to reawaken memories of other spaces, beyond the form and the material, that allow us to access experiences lived by us or others. The job of the architect, therefore, is a discipline of observation and reflection, towards the primary relationships that underlie the slow phenomena of human culture. 

A “slow design” that is expressed well, for example, in the Z33 museum for contemporary art, recently completed in the Belgian city of Hasselt. The two-storey building incorporates the existing building Vleugel ’58 and the result is an extension made up of a series of rooms of different sizes, proportions and atmospheres, directly connected to one another. 

The complexity of the labyrinthine spatial layout recalls the multiplicity of experiences encountered when moving through a city, in a continuous intermediation between public and private, exposure and intimacy. In the same way, the brick facade sets up a sensitive dialogue not only with the construction traditions of the place but with the colour and physical variations of a material connected to temperature, light and the nuances of the sky.