THE OLD FAEMA FACTORY: INDUSTRIAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND CONTEMPORARY ARCHITECTURE

A row of scaffolding emerges on the right-hand side of the small Via Ventura, hinges around the Hyundai deposit, now in disuse, and the crumbling skeleton of the old Tagliabue (later Mirea) factory, where once industrial machinery was made. Modernity is coming to the Lambrate zone, still known as the “north-eastern outskirts”, but in actual fact a small borough that has been incorporated in the city and shut off funnel-like between the railway tracks on one side and the Eastside bypass on the other. Some twenty years of abandon had passed, accompanied by the joyless cohabitation of its residents with the empty factories and miserable crumbling walls that reflected an industrial past wiped out by changing times. Then everything started with the old coffee-machine factory Faema, reborn as a “culture factory”, which everyday involves some 500 editors, architects, designers and artists in a network of schemes and projects.

 

 

 

development process

 

The renovation scheme for the old Faema factory industrial area in Via Ventura involves a group of warehouses and buildings covering a surface area of 20,000 sq m. Begun in 2000, the aim of the project was to breathe life back into an obsolete factory by making it part of the quarter and giving it back to the people. The architecture is adapted to a series of different functions. The outlines of the original space have been kept, but dissected and removing parts to introduce light, air and green areas to the new spaces. Terraces, patios and courtyards offer new uses, while former industrial sites become new areas for housing.  Architect Aldo Cibic redesigned three warehouses that now house the publishing company “Abitare”, who were the first to move to the refurbished quarter in 2002. Since then, a new area has sprung up around it. Mariano Pichler transferred his studio-gallery here, while on the upper floors lofts were being made ready for journalists and advertising companies. Then came architects Mutti and Albanese. In 2003 gallery owner Massimo De Carlo joined them, taking over a whole warehouse. A year later, a new occupant: inhabiting the top floor (on the east side) was the Scuola Politecnica di Design, which alone brings Lambrate an average of two hundred young people daily, piercing in their mouths and Italian dictionaries in their pockets. Last but not least to make its appearance a branch of the Triennale bookshop, specialising in graphics and design. Also on the site are residential areas, shops and a location for events.

 

the technology

The aim was to be experimental while conserving the pre-existing structure. Various industrial components have been divested of their original use: corrugated fibre cement for the new roofing; polycarbonate plastic for the light-filled reception area, the greenhouses and stairwells; slender strips of galvanised iron for the technical areas; derolled/unrolled multilayer wooden panels for the facing of the front; double panes of U glass to close off the divided areas; railway sleepers, no longer in use, lain on the ground as speed bumps.