Pieve Tesino Landscape Museum
A museum-laboratory of the alpine landscape in Trentino
This project was about designing a museum-laboratory that describes the diverse natural realms and anthropic vicissitudes of the Trentino landscape and observes them through fresh eyes. A “test-tube landscape” on a one-to-one scale that regenerates and deciphers the natural world. It offers a scientific analysis of the site, through an attractive, experimental and new approach that stimulates the curiosity of a vast public from different backgrounds and cultures.
We imagined a large transparent “display case” that eliminates the divide between interior and exterior; the building is a container of exemplary fragments of the Trentino landscape.
Inside, the Trentino region is subdivided into three characteristic “environments”, each comprised of the animal, plant, mineral and anthropic realms. Each level corresponds with a diverse typology of “environment”.
The dark and “cavernous” basement speaks of the riches and complexity of the Alpine terrain, of the subterranean world. Here visitors learn about fossils, minerals, techniques of quarrying, irrigation of canals, subterranean springs and the different roots of trees and plant species. Warm and thermal springs. The first floor presents the landscape and environment we habitually experience.
Animal and plant species, nature trails, karst springs, rock faces and cliffs, agricultural and rural constructions, including their various typologies and construction techniques. The uppermost level speaks of air, wind, clouds and birds. Here it is possible to experience diverse sensations of the void: viewing the landscape from above, floating between the clouds suspended on steel cables or as part of multimedia installations.
The glass display case rests on the terrain in various ways, creating works of “green” architecture. Volumes in reinforced earth become “green libraries”, “open shelves” illustrating diverse plant species.
Drawings
