Sala delle Capriate at Palazzo della Ragione / CN10 architetti

Architects: CN10 architetti
Location: Città Alta, Bergamo, Province of Bergamo, Italy
Lead Architect: Gianluca Gelmini
Area: 500.0 m2
Project Year: 2017
Photographs: Gianluca Gelmini

General Contractor: KREA allestimenti

From the architect. The project provides for a new set-up of the “Sala delle Capriate” in the “Palazzo della Ragione” of Upper Bergamo. The building dates back to the XII century and represents the physical and functional center of the historic city. It is the core of a system of open public spaces and it directly relates to them on different sides. Once the building stopped to host the municipality, the upper room changed a series of different functions. Today its walls are covered with a significant review of art pieces collected over time from different buildings of the city.

The result is a minimal intervention made of a suspended system of hexagons, intended as gazes over the city: like the circles drawn on the embroidery of the colored windows, the suspended structure puts on display the excellence of the territory. This is exactly as it occurs in the cellars of the beehive, where the repetition of the hexagonal frame becomes the structure where life happens. Similarly, the hexagons of the project can become light, sound, image, space. It is a dynamic system of possible configurations that transform the room according to the given event and program.

The hexagonal mesh is dimensioned coherently with the pace of the wooden trusses. The result is a simple and modular composition, made out of the combination of beams and joints. The beams incorporate in their own structure the technological solutions necessary to set in the room different arrangements. They host indeed the technical devices like lightning, both fixed and movable, sound and video systems, motorized projection tarps and hooks to hang panels and other equipment. The fixing system that allows hanging the hexagons to the trusses is located on the joints.

The whole structure can be easily lowered thanks to a motorized solution, in order to guarantee fast changes of setting, a simple maintenance and a better management of the space. The new set-up is completed on the ground floor by a system of hexagonal structures with the same dimension of the suspended one, that can be freely arranged in the room. They are made of modular elements that increase the number and the complexity of the different configurations of the room.