The town of Grottammare and the nearby communities, together with a local foundation, have decided to create a special facility with a 1,500-seat multi-purpose auditorium (the Main Room), combined with a 250- to 400-seat meeting room, together with educational, exhibition, and recreation spaces. With its location close to the sea and its direct connection to the highway, A.N.I.M.A. can be a major regional activator. Rather than resorting to convoluted volumes to arrive at some now predictable extravagance, Bernard Tschumi Architects designed the ANIMA building around two clear ideas or concepts.

First, we wanted the interior of the building to read as a small town of sorts, and to generate unexpected events through its plazas and cortili. Second, we aimed at a simple exterior, with four vertical perimeter walls or facciate, hence investigating the concept of "facades" instead of envelopes in this project. more

On the inside, we made the plan like an ideal square (72x72 meters) with the Main Room in the middle. By rotating the Main Room slightly, we generated a sequence of four trapezoidal courts, or cortili, places of social encounters and gatherings. On the outside, we anchored the four facciate of the ideal square firmly into the ground and proceeded to carve openings into each, according to orientation and use. By being abstract and figurative at the same time, we avoided conventional façade composition, giving a strong and creative presence to the ANIMA building. The image of both the front facade and the fifth facade (the roof) is a work-in-progress and will evolve with further technical studies.

Together, our two concepts of cortile interior and facciata exterior result in a building both simple and with a striking presence. It pays homage to major contributions from the Italian cultural identity, in particular for the front facade to Pericle Fazzini, a major artist from Grottammare. back

Credits

PROGRAM
Cultural Center consisting of a 1500-seat multifunction hall, large rooms for art, music, performance, and meeting spaces, a cafe, courts and gardens, as well as administrative space.
SCHEDULE
Commission 2012
SIZE
15,000 m2
BUDGET
n/a
CLIENT
Foundation Cassa di Risparmio di Ascoli Piceno
TEAM
Lead Designer: Bernard Tschumi. Key Personnel: Joel Rutten, Chris Lee, Bart-Jan Polman, Jerome Haferd, Nianlai Zhong, Eleonora Flammini, Jake Matatyaou. Models: Dustin Brugmann, Olga Jitariouk. Report: Bernard Tschumi, Colin Spoelman, Alison McIlvride, Ruben Gutierrez
Collaborators and Consultants (Italy): Alfonso Giancotti, Michele Tiberi, Enrico Moretti, Alessandro Federici, Giuseppe Puglia, Fabio Giannini, Vittorio Marucci, Antonio Morganti, Marco Brizzi
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Program: Cultural, Performance, Public Buildings