projects | Viabizzuno progettiamo la luce

palazzo pisani takes its name from the noble venetian family who built it in the sixteenth century and then owned it continuously for three hundred years. it now houses the municipal offices of the city of lonigo (vicenza). the oldest image we have of the building is the pink map dated 1597 which gives a close-up ‘photograph' of the original layout of the building which guarded the south door of the city, situated between the two crenellated towers and the fine renaissance well. towards the end of the seventeenth century this layout was radically altered: the palazzo encompassed the watchtowers with the addition of two wings on the east and west sides, while the north façade was embellished with the addition of an external staircase leading to the main reception floor. so was born the urban architectural role of this building, which on one side functions as a hinge between the mediaeval core of the old city and the more recent part built in the nineteenth century; while on the other side it forms a perspective frame for the piazza fronting it. the restoration project for the external façades of palazzo pisani begins from a consideration of the role of the building in creating scenography, and uses lighting to enhance each single façade differently, depending on the organisation of volumes, of the spaces fronting them, and of their function. the point of departure for the lighting project: enhancing the plastic quality of the volumes. the expressive strength of these volumes is made to emerge by use of oblique beams of light on the surfaces. the overall result is enriched by the enhancement of a number of fine architectural features: the sixteenth-century well; the coats of arms on the north façade; the chimneys on the roof. the light which falls on these features helps even the most inattentive viewer to notice and appreciate them.