National Museum of Judaism and the Shoah in Ferrara
The object of the project is creating a museum of Jewish culture not only focused on the drama of the Shoah, but above all on a vibrant and engaging exhibition space, which would attract the visitor to know and experience the charm, the beauty and tradition of Jewish culture that developed from 5771 years ago. Some of the greatest artists in history (from Chagall to Man Ray, from Lichtenstein to Sol LeWitt) are of Jewish origin, as well as some of the greatest writers (Franz Kafka), directors (Steven Spielberg, Roman Polanski) and then this museum, between permanent and temporary spaces will accommodate lively exhibitions and events able to attract large numbers of visitors, as it does now in the museums of Venice, Florence and Rome.
A project made up of independent systems. Firstly, the project did not want to develop the museum as an enclosed building to which only you have to access through the main entrance. The project involves the conservation and restoration of the body C, as required by the notice of competition and specified by DIP document replacing the building B with another new building and construction of a new volume on Via Rampari St. Paul. The National Museum of Judaism and the Shoah in Ferrara in its complexity is thus made up of the three volumes of which two are newly built and one result of the restoration of the old prisons. The goal was to open the project to the city and allow you to use it every day in various ways, not only to see the entire museum, namely: 1. Visit the park To this end, the outer walls were opened laterally, on the front main and side green bands were merged with the former prisons to give birth to a new urban park that the citizens of Ferrara and visitors can use at any time of the day to take a walk, even without visiting the museum. This will transform the museum in an urban environment used daily by citizens and approach them with interest and curiosity to Jewish culture. Since Ferrara make great use of bicycles to get around, two cycle tracks crossing the area from Via Piangipane via Rampari were provided. 2. Workshops on water passages provided in the park provide access independently at various points of the project. The new volume B contains the conference room on the ground floor and can be accessed directly from the park just to hear a lecture without entering the museum.
3. The restaurant has been placed over the input volume from via Rampari to be accessible even when the museum is closed until late evening for dinners and receptions. 4. Library The library of the Jewish cultural center is directly accessible from the entrance from via Rampari and will allow scholars and researchers to access them directly without going through the exhibition on the upper floors. 5. Temporary exhibitions The new volume B contains the temporary exhibitions on the top floor and can be accessed directly from the park to visit the exhibition only temporary and not the whole exhibition. 6. The Museum The complete tour around the museum takes place away from the entrance to Rampari St. Paul, as described below.
This flexibility comes from the opening of the museum to the environ- ment and will allow the plant to live in various ways without mono-functional constraints. This will also allow to perform various tasks simultaneously, for example. a conference, without disturbing each other.
The MUSEUM OF THE WORD The volumes and new forms of this project take shape by deep research conducted on the alphabet and the Hebrew cabala, based on the concept that according to Jewish cabal the world has been built with the 32 Sephiroth, that the 22 letters of ‘alphabet and 10 numerals. Jewish culture does not use the figurative representation in art because it would be idolatry and then the shapes and images of Jewish tradition for generations materialize mainly in the letters of the alphabet. then the project has chosen to develop two new volumes in interpreting the following Hebrew letters: the letter? (MEM from which we get the word “WATER”) and the letter? (Dalet from which we get the word “DOOR”).
The MEM’s letter? is the thirteenth letter of ‘Hebrew alphabet. With a MEM starts the term Mayim, and therefore this letter symbolizes all that is connected with the water: the forty rounds of Noah’s flood, the river, the underground river. It also refers to the verse: “And the spirit of God hovered over the surface of the waters” (Bereshit, 1.2). It not at all the same shape of this letter echoes the rounded water character. The new volume B is designed taking the trend of the MEM letter. Its performance has resulted in an asymmetrical volume, characterized by a large open central space for the museum exhibition and a long ramp curved perimeter that accompanies the flow of visitors to the various levels of the museum. The location of the museum is transformed from the second floor in a downward spiral towards the conference room on the ground floor. The appendix to the left of MEM character has been translated in a separate volume containing an isolated chapel, as a sort of appendage at the end of the permanent exhibition. The water has been translated in the outer space through a series of shallow-water basins that unite the three volumes of the museum in a single project. This solution leads to an abstraction of existing volumes and the new ones of the museum to the context, for it assumes the symbolic appeal of culture that can be visited inside. The tanks will host sculptures by Jewish artists and temporary exhibitions to bring Jewish culture to the public.
The Dalet The letter? It is the sixth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and meant “DOOR.” It seemed interesting to refer to this Hebrew character for the shape of the museum’s input volume or the “door” of the whole project. The prospectus fact the new volume via Rampari St. Paul translates this letter with a high volume of stainless steel (the restaurant) suspended on a transparent double-height lobby and up the escalators on the right. This solution allows you to see from the road the C volume of the museum, the park with the water space and back. The museum thus does not present itself as a closed building with a single door, but as an open system to the city. As the Hebrew characters, the architectural form end is rounded and deforms, in this case because of the escalators, to evoke the ink clump that left the brush, while writing, at the end of the letter.
THE METAPHORS In the project of the museum complex we used in various parts of the metaphor means of translating, with shapes and materials, various concepts and dear memories to Jewish tradition: The desert in front of the new input volume via Rampari were provided two tanks filled sand to evoke the theme of the desert, very important in the history of the Jewish people. Suffice it to recall the past forty years in the Sinai desert in the exodus from Egypt to the Promised Land. The Synagogue in Curacao, built in 1732, the community of Portuguese Jews presents the sand-covered floor to evoke the same memory of the desert. In the new desert, full of references and insights, will be placed 32 night fire, remember the 32 Sephiroth, who will have the function of illuminating the paths of the visitors’ entrance during the evening. Coming from Via Rampari St. Paul, even before you feel the presence of water, it will first scorgerà the external arrangement in the sand at the foot of the glass volume, d ‘input element to the whole museum area. “Moses did raise the camp of Israel from the Red Sea and they went out into the wilderness of Shur. They went three days in the wilderness and found no water. They came to Marah, they could not drink the waters of Marah, for they were bitter. For this they were called Marah. And the people murmured against Moses: “What shall we drink? ‘. He called upon the Lord, who showed him a piece of wood. He threw it in the water and the water became sweet. In that place the Lord made for them a statute and a law; in that place put him to the test. “(Exodus 15:22)
THE DOORS In the design of the park lodging the original idea, from which you build the project, is to overcome the sense of closure and limitation of space due to the presence of the double perimeter walls, characteristic of the prison complex. The intention is to open the space to the city, through the fragmentation of the walls and the opening of passages that allow the use of outdoor spaces through new visual and pedestrian paths. We believe that the image of the port is full of meaning and appropriate to be placed inside the museum project. In Psalm 23.7 reads: “Lift, doors, your lifted up, O ancient doors and the King of glory” To this end, the double perimeter walls have been cut to create the transverse paths that allow you to easily reach various points the museum (congress hall, temporary exhibitions, street Rampari input) from various points of the park. These steps are characterized by the presence of large doors in corten full height, fixed to the ground, partly protruding out of the outer wall and partly internal to follow the trajectory. These large doors evoke the metaphor that Judaism opens its doors to other cultures and vice versa that other cultures enter the museum to discover Judaism.
THE SEA On the long sides of the museum great low water reservoirs were predicted to evoke the theme of the sea, so important in Jewish memory. The metaphor of the sea also serves to abstract the new B-D buildings and the existing building C of context around and to enrich the charm of a goal to be reached by crossing the sea. “The Lord said to Moses,” Stretch out your hand over the sea, that the waters may come again upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots and their horsemen. ” Moses stretched out his hand over the sea and the sea, in the cool of the morning, he returned to his usual level, while the Egyptians fled against it directed against. The Lord swept them into the sea as well. The waters returned, and covered the chariots and the horsemen of all the host of Pharaoh that came into the sea after Israel: not one of them escaped one. Instead the children of Israel went on dry land in the sea, and the waters were for them a wall on the right and left. In that day the Lord saved Israel from the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore; Israel saw the great power with which the LORD had acted against the Egyptians, and the people feared the Lord and believed in him and in his servant Moses. “(Exodus 14:26)
MATERIALS L ‘entire museum complex is formed by four different volumes which differ in shape and material, as well as for the function that host. The first volume that receives the visitor arriving from Via S. Paolo Rampari will be fully glazed throughout its lower part, to a height of 8m. The choice of material helps to emphasize the idea of transparency and permeability that you want to communicate. The second volume through which it passes along the museum will be the result of the restoration of the building of the former prisons, up again in the city in its historical truth, with brick facades recovered thanks to the restoration. The route then continues in the new building, built to replace the old building B. Quest ‘last will be covered by steel panels inoxAISI 316 dished through a mold with various shapes and facade pattern, capable of giving great brightness to’ entire project thanks to games of light that will occur for the reflection characteristic of the material.
This solution evokes and reinterprets arching pyramid of Palazzo dei Diamanti in Ferrara Biagio Rossetti (1493), masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance. The same façade solution will be echoed to coat the floor of the input volume, which will be located in the restaurant. B comes out on top of the volume, backlog of the width of the circulation ramp, the internal volume of reinforced concrete beams and such a solution reduces the visual impact of volume B on the environment.