projects | Viabizzuno progettiamo la luce

lab is a place for hand making and for developing ideas. a workshop where thinking and making meet each other under the correct light. mario nanni was commissioned by venice biennale to create a place for project sharing, an area in continuous evolution, thought, created and lighted to contain every single phase of a project. a workshop for creation, where simple materials (wood, paper, chalk, light…) are there to become something new and alive in a craftsman’s hands, where thoughts extend, in order to pick new intuitions on the arts work, on the creation. the entrance is directly from calle del ridotto, historical entrance of the biennale, an access, a passage of light and glances, designed by mario nanni, will connect directly this workshop on the ground floor to cà giustinian, a linkage with the complex institutional space which the biennale has predestined for welcoming temporary and permanent exhibitions. the door of light is a dreamlike and emotional passage, highly symbolic and iconographical; a hole that shatter the ancient division, strict and pre-built, between the two areas: the one of making and the one of thinking. the lab has been refurbished in order to show its intents, starting from its architecture. walls are rough; on them, birch modular containers take shape (riposami) becoming a consulting material library. the cement floor is hand finished with a special oil that lets out the weft and the granulometry, giving it a natural colour, different on each platform, just like the texture of venetian 'masegni': one next to the other, different but linked. on the ground, larch wooden ducts draw the tracks between a cement platform and the other, becoming like a technical and flexible path of the conduits, but also a modular diagram of the space. large working tables made of birch multilayer are stackable and adjustable. a monumental slate wall becomes a collector of ideas and a describing partition for the projects. the biennale’s arts laboratory is opened to young designers that are eager to compare themselves with italian’s design excellence. in addition, it is thought to contain thinking objects: studied and designed in the biennale for the biennale. the first masterclass in visual arts and design was held by mario nanni who gave it an evocative theme title: 'from cinema, the light bulb for architecture'. arts and disciplines of biennale, therefore become study and work instruments. the teacher has to pay heed while working, being able to dedicate himself to the students making them learn how to create: this is what the lab’s space is thought for. silence and light help concentrate. open creativity is allowable thanks to freedom of moving around, occupying space without restraint. solid, simple and linear furniture create a homelike atmosphere making the student feel comfortable. this is where manufacture objects are designed, meant to work, and not to be sold. the lab wants to train its pupils in becoming professionals, capable of comprehending the space and improving it, identifying issues of everyday living and sorting out the solutions. art enlightens the ones that want to produce valid everlasting objects. this becomes the space in which the world of the biennale meets the world, offering the students the opportunity of reaching teachers that open and enlarge their knowhow. the meeting with the mentor is also made of pain: this school also teaches how to put oneself to test, how to cope with unsuccessfulness, how to learn to abandon the first idea. the result of this workshop is a new course itself, the beginning of a new future story of the biennale. the project can be summed up in one sentence: if one doesn’t directly apply himself there is no creative capability. meeting the maestro changes your life. paolo baratta, presidente la biennale di venezia