BEGO - Benozzo Gozzoli Museum / Massimo Mariani

Concept

It was necessary to make a building to house two tabernacles of master Benozzo Gozzoli with its sinopie, which waited a long time in the civic library for definitive fitting.

To do this, in the historic center of Castelfiorentino, a building of the'60s has been demolished between the train station and the Oratorio San Carlo. The new design of the building, with a total area of about 400 square meters, closely follows the ground footprint of the old building and has the good fortune to be detached from the surroundings like in a kind of square.

Location

The building is rooted to the ground with a functional base, a kind of shaped island, which solves the problem of urban furnishing (benches, flower-pot, etc..). The curvilinear base runs around, at the same time people get a little bit of Museum space as the base becomes a bench, a playing area for children, a theatre for small outdoor events.

Materials

The building is entirely coated in bricks (as the Municipality asked) in this way it refers to materials and finishes of some local churches.

Description

The ground floor is characterized in part by a low ceiling, it's a shaded area which quickly runs to the full-height space, where is placed the Tabernacolo della Visitazione, under a cascade of natural light.

On the first floor, recessed into the corner-wall, is placed the Tabernacolo della Madonna della Tosse. The staircase linking the floors, became a visual path, framing the Tabernacles like in a kind of unexpected pictures, now outside the original context. It stops on the first floor, and then restart on the opposite, reaching an educational room on the second floor.

The building, due to its small size, retains something domestic, it's like a home studio where Benozzo Gozzoli seems to join us to visit these frescoes while he's still working on.