Progetto: Ricci&Spaini, Aldo Aymonino, Carmen Andriani, e Silvio D'Amore (Teprin associati).

The Museum and the City
Our proposal for the Rome Contemporary Art Center is based on two critical issues. One has to do with the identity of a large "public container" building and with the nature of its urban relations with the whole city and particularly with the "cultural district" now growing on both sides of the old via Flaminia. In fact the articulated topography of arts, institutions, private and social agents listed to be located in the CCA make us actually imagine the Center as a sort of enclosed city for the production and observation of the Arts. The other one has to to with the confrontation of our general idea of museum and exhibition space - paths, interior organization and hierarchies - with program, site, and time of this specific museum. The syntetic image of our museum comes then as the outcome of the process of superimposing these two issues, where the glass box fencing the site stands for the urban condition and the suspended solids of the galleries tell us about the museum. The full-height main hall connecting via Reni to via Masaccio is therefore both the symbolic court where all the activities of the center are finally visible and a typical contemporary public space. Where the articulated glass box speaks about the architectural forms and the social conditions of a generic metropolis at the beginning of the next millennium, and the footprint of the building defines the urban relations of this building in this site. Through its layout the building is then opened to the pedestrian flows moving between via Flamina and Lungotevere, extended to face the great urban void of Piazza Mancini, elevated to feature a new presence in the skyline of the city. The series of exhibition spaces is obviously the other essential feature of the project. Their akward geometry, namely in the sequence of the five galleries at the top floor, finally shapes both the main facades and the building, becoming its manifesto. Their presence along the museum paths and visibility in the fluid space of the main hall stands as a clear expression of our ideas on architecture and art. The choice of locating the galleries at the higher floor makes the conceptual difference betwen the two lower levels and the top even clearer. Open and accessible the first, as any indoor city, filtered and controlled the last. Visually, the relation between the main hall and the museum lobby at the third level immediately clarifies circulation and paths to the visitor, who is free to choose to walk around the ground-floor program or climb on the escalator to go straight to the collection.
The Museum and the Public Space
On via Reni the main hall generates a "plaza" immediately ready to take part to urban flows and paths. As a baroque piazza it compresses the museum masses to provide the city an adequate yard to perceive the entrance and the other main architectural partis of the building. Shaded by a brise-soleil, the glass facade duplicates the size of the open space and determines the scale of a space shared both by the museum and the city. The cantilevered masses of the galleries break this balanced condition, abrubtly pushing the building into an urban scale. On the narrow canyon of via Masaccio the relation between the translucent halls and the street level loses continuity in favor of visuality. The facade surface next to the entrance is occupied by the opaque walls of the auditorium, while the translucent lobby space happens at the third level, lifted and protected, object of museumgoers desire. On East and West sides the Center faces both precarious and heavily conditioning bordering constructions. There we consequently chose opaque or blind facades, provided by preserved fragments of the existing barracks. Along the west facade, between the preexisting part and the new building, a wide path both the pedestrian circulation along the building edge, letting at the same time service cars and trucks within the museum precinct. The issue of the old fabric of the barracks is then given different answers in the project: "ruine" in the preserved parts, "urban memory" in the geometry of the main galleries and in their way of capturing light. On the side of Piazza Mancini the building extends its "manica lunga", opening an important facade and specific entries on the new "triangular" access park.
Architecture and Program
The two main architectural elements of the project - the glass skin and the masses - also reflect the general layout of the program. The whole program accessible both to museum visitors and to the rest of the public is located at the two lower levels. Besides orientation, ticket desks, wardrobe, etc. the main hall houses all the typical spaces for cultural leisure. Auditorium, library, temporary exhibits gallery, cafeterias, bookstore and other commercial spaces line up along the main hall, opaque or translucent boxes according to necessity, creating a real urban enclosed landscape, shaded by the flying masses of the galleries. Also the western wing follows the same philosophy, with ateliers and other specific spaces at the first level, archives and offices of the Architecture Museum and Advanced Studies at second level and the architecture gallery at the third level. The preserved existing building hosts offices, services and circulation and has a "vertical" addition with the study gallery. The layout of circulation and exhibition paths again emphasizes the dual condition of the building. Public stairs, escalators, and bridges always perform their program in the open space of the atrium, clarifying the treshold condition from "piazza" to museum space, the passages from one gallery to the next, the continuity between first and second level. On the side of piazza Mancini, the access to the Architecture Museum is allowed through a long ramp lifting from the "green area", collecting the visitors using the underground parking garage. Thus, located in the west wing, the Architecture Museum achieves its necessarily flexible condition, being an autonomous institution -and building - and at the same time part of the Center.