projects | Viabizzuno progettiamo la luce

‘questioni di forma’ is the architecture exhibition that the municipality of pisa and the region tuscany dedicated to the david chipperfield architects projects, whose title is the free translation of the original ‘form matters’, held at the london design museum in 2009. the exhibition, hosted inside the magnificent arsenali medicei in pisa, mainly dedicated to the projects developed by the milan branch of the david chipperfield architects studio for the pisa old town and to the original interest of david chipperfield about form and matter during his first 25 years of work. in 2009 the studio won the international competition for the designing and redevelopment of the santa chiara hospital area and was entrusted to the drafting of the pisa piuss (integrated plans for sustainable urban development) masterplan. the covered area of santa chiara complex (more than 10 ha) is located inside the heart of the pisa old town and borders with piazza del duomo, included among the unesco sites as a world heritage. composure, rigor and and scrupulousness in inserting the architectural work in the surroundings are the qualities that mainly emerge from the works exhibited by david chipperfield, all along engaged in the research of the most appropriate matter to build every projects. the exhibition title ‘form matters – questioni di forma’ combines in a wordplay the two most meaningful features of the job of an architect. form and matter, appearance and substance, the complete achievement of a formal idea. already in the title is implicit the acceptance of the principle according to which an architect’s work must be judged by the formal outcome, that is the form, no matter what is the complexity of the project and the amount of problems one had to face. moving inside the wide spaces of the arsenali medicei one has the chance to follow a part of the personal journey that sir david chipperfield developed in 25 years of work. visiting the exhibition one discovers how the tangible impossibility to tranfer into the hall of a museum the architecture as such, meant like a reality anchored to the ground or geometric composition, is instead possible by reading scale models, pictures and large format drawings. so we learn that architecture cannot be staged but can be ricreated with also the weight of the value of its designing, to be intended as a dynamic process which must mediate between theory and practice. the light, inside the mario nanni’s project, plays a foundamental role to discover to the end the meaning of any single architecture by learning to observe it, according to the master chipperfield’s teachings, like a total mediation between form and matter. the track light fittings placed on the wide bays of the historical space are the dca, conceived and designed jointly by david chipperfield and mario nanni and then declined into a whole family of lighting systems in different versions: recessed, semi-recessed, ceiling, wall, hanging and track. the lighting system disappears, integrating itself in the structure of the body factory: along the chains the tracks have been placed, from them the chrome-finished light fittings emerge; this system allowed a great flexibility of lights and their correct placement on the displayed projects making the set up theatrical and rigorous at the same time.