Fabrica Benetton Verona: Tadao Ando's design and construction

Fabrica

Personal Response to the Fabrica Benetton Building in Verona, Italy

One of the more appealing ambitions to emerge from post-modern architectural philosophy is that which seeks to immerse structural ambition into its natural surrounding without disruption. Traditional approaches to modern urban design have sought to dispatch with nature in favor of all-consuming building sites. Tadao Ando's Frabrica, also known as the Benetton Communication Research Center, in Verona, Italy stands as an inspiring counterpoint to this philosophy. The sprawling array of columns, arches, terraces and chambers was completed in 2004 and is an absolutely stunning inversion of architectural principles, weaving itself harmonious into the natural landscape by integrating a reflecting pool, an open-air solarium and indoor corridors illuminated by ample sky-lighting.

The research center was constructed to serve as a forum for specialized studies, innovative projects and research endeavors in a wide host of disciplines, but particularly in the area of communications. In line with its progressive orientation, the architecture renders a totally unique ambience for scholarly stimulation. Ando's Japanese ethnicity plays a particularly large role in what can be described as a distinctly materialist representation of architectural ideology. Ando would borrow heavily from all manner of architectural tradition, inserting outdoor colonnades with clear reference to Roman styles and, in close proximity, arranging sharp geometrical figures in asymmetrical harmony that comports with Asian philosophy on Feng Shui.

I found myself moved to intrigue by such areas as the open-air solarium, which is a bare concrete surface ensconced in columns. The close thicket of columns surrounds an opened center, which provides a surface that naturally attracts the individual given the open skylight directly above it. This is a fine example of the manner in which Ando manages to yield the prospect of human usability without any adornment. Indeed, for all the brash creativity reflected in its arrangement of shapes and structures, the facility's most compelling feature is its simplicity.

Again, it allows nature to do much of its decorative work, with its entrance way dominated by the effect of the reflecting pool. The buildings themselves have a stately Ivy League campus quality, with archways leading to outdoor perimeter corridors and essentially classical European constructions. But the appearance of the buildings from across the pool reveals a serenity that appeals to the institution's goal of scholarly and creative inspiration. So too do its bare and unadorned interiors, which draw their warmth from the generous inlet of sunlight that is a core goal of the construction. Windows, skylights and opened passageways allow the individual to sense this integration with nature even when indoors.

Interestingly, the Research Center is something of a restoration project, with the land adapted from a renaissance era villa. Its connectivity to the land already in place denotes a continuity with and respect for the area's immediate architectural history. But of course, the project is decidedly of this time, denoting in its radical free flow of objects and buildings the unrestrained experimentation with media forms and new technologies that occur within its walls.