Sinuous Filter
The plan of the Modam is thought like a pavilion in the park, is an osmotic element intensely urban, that integrates with the dimension of the surrounding open space becoming a necessary element, origin of the plan of the park.
The suspended fencing multiplies the levels of the park, integrating the functions demanded, in a dimension that exceeds the spaces categories of inside and outside, detecting a time and space continuum between the various building lines.
The architecture turns out to be shaped from the interaction of three different building conditions: detecting the topic, rationalizing and streamlining the functional program, introducing the project in the contest.
The functions are articulated on three main levels and separate the spaces of the Museum, placed in the underground level, from the spaces of the School, on the first floor, with the primary intention to join and to create an interaction between the functions they have in common in a single space on the ground floor.
This choice refers to aspects with wide urban implications, like the connection with the park, in particular in the northeast side with the Plan of the City of Fashion.
The horizontal development of the volume sets against the vertical growth of the neighbouring buildings, and tries to balance the city composition. The building sets itself as a physical link between the park and the City of Fashion.
Conception of the museum
Central element of the architectural formulation of the Modam is that the plan on the level of the park is almost free, transparent and without limits.
The placement of the glass element disposition allows free movements between the paved spaces allowing the access to the Museum, to the School, or simply to get to the park that, in the way of LeCorbusier, maintains entire its surface, thanks to the "suspension" of the volume of the School.
The ground floor of the Modam is conceived as the point of central distribution, it contains the common spaces, in which all happens and everything is visible.
In this free disposition the visitor distinguishes a main distribution axis, that organizes the different uses: access to the Museum and to the School, departure or arrival of a walk in the park.
The light that crosses the Modam in a vertical way, allows a system of visual relations between inside and outside. In these vertical limits the visitor can have a complete perception of the building. From the balcony of the classrooms, place accessible only from students, the look covers the entire section of the building, crosses the look of the visitors on the ground floor, and it reaches the gardens in the patios of the Museum in the underground level. Open-air stairs in every patio join together the various levels, in a striking synergy that reaches the top in the summer months. This paths are oriented in harmony with the ways of the park, and in this way they try to mix the project up with the context.
The sinuous movement of the cover, can be associated to the idea of the sculpture of a body that lies gently on the park, and that encloses the answer to space needs, like the height of the ceilings in the technical laboratories bigger than the height of the classrooms.
The same willowy game is used in the underground level, where light slope variations stimulate the exhibition path of the Museum and solve, as in the School, specific needs about the height of ceiling in the different rooms.
This dichotomy between rigidity and flexibility, between full and empty, between fragile and strong establish a clear figurative metaphor that follows evocations and symbols that has always been bound to the ephemeral esthetics, to the beauty of the human body, to the grace of a painting and to the relations between the arts.
Three single blocks indicate the accesses to the Museum, to the School and to the technical an administrative zones. Every access has its own support spaces: the access to the museum is connected with the conferences hall, the entrance to the school is near the coffee house, and the administrative zone is next to the bookshop.
These three centers support the great structure of the School of Fashion, located completely on the upper floor and where the different functions develop around two large patios, the first for laboratories and the second for the classrooms. This extremely bright space looks at the park and inside the building, where big terraces are used for open-air work and meeting, and stay above the Forum in an elegant way.
The administrative zone is situated in a mezzanine floor suspended under the School, and is connected through a big ramp, that accompanies the nice silhouette of the front, with the entrance of the School.
On the underground level there is the Museum of Fashion. In a great space we can find the exposition areas, here, next to two patios, there are the galleries and the technical laboratories. The setting-out of this great dimension has the purpose of finding a good flexibility, and isolate only that functions that need more discretion. The remaining surface can be used according to distinguished situations and requirements.
Between the Museum and the tunnel, there is a technical area where are placed storages and machinery, and that can be reached by vehicles coming from the tunnel .