Museum M9, Mestre

Sauerbruch Hutton

Produkte

Urban renewal in the gateway to Venice

Mestre has been part of the mu­nic­i­pal­ity of Venice since 1929. Around four-fifths of the 270,000 Vene­tians live here on the main­land, and most of them go to work in Venice proper, where tourism con­tin­ues to rise at ex­tra­or­di­nary rates. Mestre has long led a shadowy ex­is­tence, com­pared to its wealth­ier coun­ter­part Venice. Those who cannot (or can no longer) afford to live in Venice come to Mestre, as avail­abil­ity of apart­ments across the lagoon con­tin­ues to dwindle. While Mestre has fi­nan­cially ben­e­fited over the years from the in­creas­ing number of hotels it offers for the 30 million tourists who come to visit Venice every year, for some time it has sought to explore op­por­tu­ni­ties for cul­tural de­vel­op­ment as well.

Part of this de­vel­op­ment was the ‘M9 New Museum for a New City’ com­pe­ti­tion in 2010, which Berlin ar­chi­tec­tural firm Sauer­bruch Hutton won. Sauer­bruch Hutton is mostly known in Berlin for its design of the former GSW build­ing in Rudi-Dutschke-Strasse, a 17-storey high-rise with a strik­ing, radiant facade in varying shades of red, created by dif­fer­ent-coloured shut­ters. The outer wall of the new museum is clad in hor­i­zon­tal ceramic strips in dif­fer­ent colours, which are based on the earthy tones of Venet­ian build­ing tra­di­tion: oxide red, ochre and oxide green.

Every­thing had the over­ar­ch­ing goal of giving Mestre a vibrant centre with an of­fer­ing for its res­i­dents first and fore­most. For example, a co-work­ing space will soon open in one of the build­ings, drawing in young people to the quarter. The large inner court­yard of the former convent will in­vig­o­rate the quarter through the events it hosts through­out the year and for this purpose was fitted with a light­weight mem­brane canopy sus­pended over the roof of the old build­ing. The project in­cluded a late-16th-cen­tury four-wing build­ing en­clos­ing the court­yard, which the ar­chi­tects ren­o­vated and re­designed for new use, pri­mar­ily by busi­nesses and restau­rants.

Architect and object

Foto: © Claire Laude

‘The central image for our M9 design is the tra­di­tional Italian city with its plazas, streets and alleys – and the Italian tra­di­tion of outdoor living,’ the ar­chi­tects explain.

Public life at the centre of the via, piazzetta and piazza

The actual centre point of the design is the newly created pathway that acts as a central axis running between the en­sem­ble of new build­ings, which con­sists of two parts, and through the now covered inner court­yard of the old convent. It opens up a new axis between the Piazza Erminio Fer­retto and the vibrant shop­ping street Via Cap­puc­cina, while also pro­vid­ing access to inside the block (pre­vi­ously closed to res­i­dents), where a newly created pi­azzetta, or small plaza, invites vis­i­tors to stay awhile. Restau­rants and busi­nesses in the old arcades bring the inner court­yard to life. By split­ting the space into a main build­ing and a smaller service and ad­min­is­tra­tion build­ing, the M9 blends in well with the ex­ist­ing sec­tioned fabric of Mestre.

The project en­cour­ages move­ment towards more public life at other points in the urban land­scape as well. The en­ergy-ef­fi­cient facade with a new shop window on an ex­ist­ing office build­ing opens to Via Poerio and breathes fresh life into the space. The M9 museum build­ing itself is also de­signed for public life. The pointy ‘ship’s bow’ of the build­ing on the ground floor will house a large am­phithe­atre for events that stretch into the night. The hall was also de­signed for use as a cinema to offer ad­di­tional viewing space for the Venice Film Fes­ti­val. It allows Mestre to profit from the success of its coun­ter­part across the lagoon at a cul­tural level as well. It remains to be seen whether future de­vel­op­ments in the quarter on the main­land will be ex­e­cuted as thought­fully and with such con­sid­er­a­tion for res­i­dents of the city as this project by Sauer­bruch Hutton was – and whether Mestre will flour­ish as Venice has.

The se­lec­tion of handle in this case was obvious: the ar­chi­tects opted for their own design. The FSB 1230 and 1231 model series were spe­cially de­signed by Sauer­bruch and Hutton and fit in per­fectly with the overall design of the M9. A so­phis­ti­cated shape with several curves and a grip section that pushes back against the hand in a way sits on a short neck that ensures that the model fits all kinds of doors and ap­pli­ca­tions. A cranked version is not needed for nar­row-stile doors. The handle is in­stalled with a black an­odised mi­cro-blasted finish that blends in per­fectly with the black-grey facade pro­files and el­e­ments of the fin­ish­ings. The rougher surface gives it an es­pe­cially pleas­ant feel. In ad­di­tion to window and door handles, FSB panic cross­bar fit­tings were also used. Read a recent in­ter­view with Sauer­bruch Hutton in the FSB blog.

Object details

Photos: Jan Bitter Fo­tografie

Location

Museo M9 Mestre

Via Gio­vanni Pascoli, 11
30171 Mestre VE
Italien

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