Half-way between Florence and Siena we find this winery whose main objetive is to be part of the landscape. In this way, being half-buried, its integration in the surroundings are bigger and the program attempt to develop in a optimal temperature and in the confort conditions for the production of wine.

Memory of project by Archea Associati

The site is surrounded by the unique hills of Chianti, covered with vineyards, half-way between Florence and Siena. A cultured and illuminated customer has made it possible to pursue, through architecture, the enhancement of the landscape and the surroundings as expression of the cultural and social valence of the place where wine is produced.

The functional aspects have therefore become an essential part of a design itinerary which centres on the geo-morphological experimentation of a building understood as the most authentic expression of a desired symbiosis and merger between anthropic culture, the work of man, his work environment and the natural environment. The physical and intellectual construction of the winery pivots on the profound and deep-rooted ties with the land, a relationship which is so intense and suffered (also in terms of economic investment) as to make the architectural image conceal itself and blend into it. The purpose of the project has therefore been to merge the building and the rural landscape; the industrial complex appears to be a part of the latter thanks to the roof, which has been turned into a plot of farmland cultivated with vines, interrupted, along the contour lines, by two horizontal cuts which let light into the interior and provide those inside the building with a view of the landscape through the imaginary construction of a diorama. The façade, to use an expression typical of buildings, therefore extends horizontally along the natural slope, paced by the rows of vines which, along with the earth, form its “roof cover”.

The openings or cuts discreetly reveal the underground interior: the office areas, organized like a belvedere above the barricade, and the areas where the wine is produced are arranged along the lower, and the bottling and storage areas along the upper. The secluded heart of the winery, where the wine matures in barrels, conveys, with its darkness and the rhythmic sequence of the terracotta vaults, the sacral dimension of a space which is hidden, not because of any desire to keep it out of sight but to guarantee the ideal thermo-hygrometric conditions for the slow maturing of the product. A reading of the architectural section of the building reveals that the altimetrical arrangement follows both the production process of the grapes which descend (as if by gravity) – from the point of arrival, to the fermentation tanks to the underground barrel vault – and that of the visitors who on the contrary ascend from the parking area to the winery and the vineyards, through the production and display areas with the press, the area where vinsanto is aged, to finally reach the restaurant and the floor hosting the auditorium, the museum, the library, the wine tasting areas and the sales outlet.

The offices, the administrative areas and executive offices, located on the upper level, are paced by a sequence of internal court illuminated by circular holes scattered across the vineyard-roof. This system also serves to provide light for the guesthouse and the caretaker’s dwelling. The materials and technologies evoke the local tradition with simplicity, coherently expressing the theme of studied naturalness, both in the use of terracotta and in the advisability of using the energy produced naturally by the earth to cool and insulate the winery, creating the ideal climatic conditions for the production of wine.

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Architects
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Archea Associati.
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Collaborators
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Paolo Giustiniani - Hydrea S.r.l. (engineering), Stefano Venturi - Emex Engineering.
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Client
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Marchesi Antinori S.R.L.
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Area
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Terrain area.- 13 ha.
Built area.- 49.000 sqm.
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Dates
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2004-2012.
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Location
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Bargino, San Casciano Val di pesa, Florence, Italy.
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Budget
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67.000.000€.
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Photography
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Leonardo Finotti.
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Giovanni Polazzi, after graduating in architecture with top marks from the University of Florence, Polazzi obtained his PhD in architectural and urban planning at the same University with a dissertation titled “Raffaello Fagnoni Florentine Architect – Analysis of a career divided between teaching and professional activities”. In 1988 he founded the Archea firm, conducting planning and research in the fields of architecture, town planning and industrial design.

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Marco Casamonti, founding partner of the Archea firm, Casamonti graduated with honours in 1990, winning a competition announced by the architecture faculty of Genoa the following year and receiving a study grant within the context of the PhD in architectural planning. He received his PhD from the architecture faculty of Genoa in 1994 with a dissertation titled “History and Design, a central issue in the architectural debate of the post-war years”. He began cooperating with various architecture firms already before graduating, including that of Professor Paolo Portoghesi. In 1988, after working together on the competition for the “recovery of the Murate prisons”, he founded the Archea firm with Laura Andreini and Giovanni Polazzi, commencing an intense professional activity.

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Laura Andreini, a founding partner of the Archea firm, Andreini graduated with honours from the Architecture Faculty of Florence in 1990, completing her PhD at the same university in 1997 with the final discussion of her dissertation titled “The permanence of the concept of proportion from Renaissance to Modernism through the model of the Florentine palace”. Her PhD supervisor was Antonio D’Auria, with whom she began cooperating in 1992 within the context of the course in interior architecture and decoration. This represented the beginning of an intense activity in the field of teaching, which has continued over the years, parallel to her work as an architect and researcher.

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Published on: April 1, 2014
Cite: "Antinori Winery by Archea Associati" METALOCUS. Accessed
<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/antinori-winery-archea-associati> ISSN 1139-6415
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