The Punta della Dogana project required an intensive survey of the existing building, one that examined not just what the building was today, but what it was historically. After all, in order for the building to be returned to its original state, when that point was and what it included had to be determined. Much of the historic building – such as the roof trusses and the brickwork – was painstakingly disassembled, restored, and reassembled. At many points, however, the scars left by the process of removal and reconstruction were retained. These blemishes allow the layers of history to maintain a presence in the museum and serve as a palimpsest of the history of the place. Throughout the working process existed the challenge of balancing Ando’s precision design work within this wildly imperfect existing environment where “walls bulged, floor levels were never uniform and no two doorways or rooms were ever the same size.1
Notes
This is an excerpt from Chapter 17 of Introducing Architectural Tectonics.
Drawing | © Chad Schwartz
1 Ugo De Berti, “Punta Della Dogana: Work on Site,” in Tadao Ando for Franҫois Pinault: From Ile Seguin to Punta Della Dogana, ed. Francesco Dal Co (Milan, Italy: Mondadori Electra S.p.A., 2009), 156.
CJS 