The Caffè Nazionale designed by AMAA introjects the city: the renovation of the historic venue in Arzignano (Vicenza) is a composite work that draws on existing elements and memories to give life to a brilliant living palimpsest. To complete the restoration, for the bathroom area, the architects selected the Sense series by QuadroDesign and a custom-made ground-connected syphon was studied specifically for the project.
© Simone Bossi
AMAA designed the Caffè Nazionale starting from the definition of a direct dialogue with the city of Arzignano and its public space.
Historical traces, with which the project establishes an intense creative relationship, generate a depth that architectural studio has emphasised through a sequence of spatial devices functioning as theatrical backdrops.
A choral intervention marked by numerous collaborations with artists contributes to an open and composite work.
Through the portico of the 19th-century Town Hall, the public dimension of the square merges with that of the new Caffè Nazionale. The main hall, a vibrant palimpsest of memory fragments, opens visual perspectives toward the rarefied natural landscape of the small inner courtyard. The project organises a sequence of spaces, creating visual connections between square, portico, and main hall. Here, original scenic devices guide the gaze towards the vestibule and ultimately the courtyard, defined as a birch garden.
This latter space opens onto the natural environment. Access to the bar is located at the centre of the porticoed wing of the palazzo, built in the second half of the 19th century on a design by architect Antonio Caregaro Negrin.
Eighteen months of work resulted in a delicate and complex project through which AMAA has given new light and vitality to a piece of Arzignano's history.
The project embraces the themes at the core of AMAA's ongoing research: a dense space of overlapping occasions layered as deeply as the memory of the place itself.
The interplay between preserved historical elements and newly designed interventions is present throughout the café, along with deliberately unfinished episodes that testify to an idea of openness. In these fragments, the temporality of construction seems almost suspended.
The bathroom, concealed behind a curtain of expanded steel sheet, is the space where this deliberate sense of incompleteness becomes most evident: here, the Sense series, collection of electronic taps with infrared presence detection, in AISI 316L stainless steel. A project reflecting QuadroDesign's commitment to improve everyday life, for practicality, ease of application and saving consumption while respecting the environment.
"The Caffè Nazionale project is a living work that takes hold of existing materials and their histories to generate a new architecture," stated AMAA. "A first delicate intervention cleared the space of incongruous accretions and stratifications that had concealed its historic fabric over decades. It was a true process of discovery that guided the subsequent stages of the project."
More information:
QuadroDesign
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www.quadrodesign.it
