PAT's intervention aims to recover the building's modern and brutalist spatial essence after the various renovations that blurred it, especially the disruptive one in 1980. In the lobby, the space was rationalized to bring it closer to its original state. The pillars that had been hidden in previous works have been left exposed again, restoring their bush-hammered concrete. Plasterboard covering sections of the glass partitions that now protect the stairs has also been removed. Finally, the original furniture has been restored to its former location.
The same dismantling strategy was followed for the exhibition hall on the second floor. Some of the problems that led to its closure have been resolved, and various elements and installations have been removed. The aluminium mesh ceiling, added in a previous intervention, has been removed. This ceiling obscured the view of the original ceiling, obscured the spatiality of the building, and hampered natural lighting. In addition, an old lost room has been restored, and a new one has been added.
GAM Lotto Zero by PAT. Photograph by Tommaso Buzzi.
Project description by PAT
"Undoing is as much a democratic right as doing".
These are the words of Gordon Matta Clark, an artist trained as an architect.
The work at the GAM was based on subtraction, aiming to rid the original building of the additions accumulated over the years: layers of plaster, sheetrock, false ceilings, and unused installations. The intervention covered an area of 3,200 square meters, in line with the ethical and ecological imperative of "doing more with less".
The Galleria d'Arte Moderna (GAM) is a building designed by Carlo Bassi and Goffredo Boschetti in 1959 to house the art collections of the city, founded in 1863. The new building was built on the ashes of a previous museum pavilion, destroyed during World War II. The volumes and spaces designed by the two young architects, in their first major commission, crystallized several powerful suggestions of the modern and brutalist movements into a disruptive and innovative form for the city. Over the decades, the interiors have been transformed: most notably in the 1980s, with an intervention that remodeled the exhibition areas and separated the staircases with glass partitions; and subsequently, with the superposition of different configurations and the dismantling of some spaces for regulatory reasons.
The objective of Lotto Zero, the first chapter of a gradual evolutionary process, was to recover the gallery's spatial harmony, reclaiming its identity and reestablishing its position in the contemporary museography landscape.
In the lobby, the organization of the box office and cloakroom were streamlined to return the space to its original essence. The pillars, which had been plastered or covered with plasterboard over the years, have been stripped and left exposed, restoring the bush-hammered concrete seen in photographs from 1959, when the newly opened Gallery was a benchmark of avant-garde museum architecture in Europe. More plasterboard covering sections of the glass partitions that now protect the stairs has been removed, giving the lobby a brighter atmosphere.
The original furniture, such as the seating designed specifically for the gallery, which had been scattered over the years in various municipal offices, has been returned to its original location. Our goal was to transform the entire ground floor, and the garden, into an open and vibrant space, accessible to all without needing an entrance ticket. We worked with an eye to both the past and the future, incorporating multimedia technologies to better communicate the GAM's many activities.
The planned dismantling strategy for the gallery is most evident on the second floor, which reopened to the public after six years. The closure was due to infiltration problems, which had already been resolved, while the problem of crumbling brick floors remained unresolved. The intervention provided the opportunity to remove the aluminum lattice ceiling that, since the 1990s, had covered the ceilings, whose shape defines the museum's distinctive character.
The slope of the roof and perimeter walls had been designed to allow natural lighting to the galleries from above. An avant-garde concept, unfortunately compromised by deficiencies in its implementation: the transparent ceilings were to be replaced by blank panels, and with the introduction of lattice ceilings and perimeter walls to conceal the new installations, all traces of the original spatiality were lost.
The perimeter windows were also closed, eliminating views of the garden and the city, key elements in preventing what is scientifically known as museum fatigue. The removals made allowed the gallery's ceilings to be exposed, facilitating its articulation, restoring the openings to the exterior, and reconnecting the two parallel naves, recreating a living room with two different atmospheres, with views to the east and west, which was already part of the 1950s project.
The intervention has recovered 1,200 square meters of exhibition space, a valuable resource for the city to enjoy works that are too often relegated to storage. In this sense, the second floor of the GAM has been enriched with the Living Depot, a space where, by reusing the grids of the gallery's storage areas, these same works are preserved and exhibited: a circular gesture that valorizes a public asset in all its components, both infrastructure and artistic heritage.
The interior of Lotto Zero is a system driven by the principle of circularity, in which the GAM's own history provides the elements for its new chapters, which intersect on various levels.
