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Claudio Nardi


Biography

Graduating in architecture from Università degli Studi, Florence in 1978, Claudio Nardi (Prato 1951) worked with Carlo Scarpa as his assistant on the International Design Project in Florence while still attending university. In 1979 he founded his eponymous design studio, again in Florence.

His acclaim derives mainly from his interior design projects throughout the world, from the mid-nineties to date, for the most prestigious Italian fashion houses including: Dolce e Gabbana, Papini, Valentino, Tod’s, Ferrè, Extè, Malo, Gente Roma and Luisaviaroma in Florence.
Supported by his design studio, Claudio Nardi Architects, Nardi "approaches each and every project with an attentiveness that is simultaneously emotional and rational".
His style concept, characterized by irresistible, sophisticated aesthetic beauty, sees architecture as the result of a focus on global complexity and meticulous eye for details. His body of work has resulted in the creation of surfaces defined by light and experimental combinations of new and traditional materials.

Other salient design themes are "transformation of the dialog between tradition and innovation, between function and form, between “product and communication” where every project is unique originating from a synthesis between the expressive potential of a location, its function and the sensitivity of the client and takes shape through the sculptural combination of weightless surfaces and rough, raw materials, solid mass and abstract voids, light and darkness".
His residential buildings include Villa Aemilia in Parma (2010), residence-boutique in Florence (2012) and numerous projects in Tel Aviv, Madrid, Kuwait City, New York, Paris, Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

One of his especially noteworthy architectural designs was the redevelopment of Oskar Schindler’s former factory in Krakow into the Museum of Contemporary Art, (MOCAK) (2011), designed with Leonardo Maria Proli.
This latter building, whose history was recorded internationally in the 1993 Oscar-winning film by Steven Spielberg, is a monument to courage “to personal sacrifice before the value of human life". The highly symbolic nature of the former Schindler factory has been maintained due to Nardi-Proli’s meticulous, respectful restoration "where its new spirit and function does not override its history but makes it interesting, readable and usable for today’s purpose rather than merely documenting the historical events in its industrial past" (M. Corradi). To achieve continuity between previous events and now, the existing building’s shed roof became the key feature, indeed the focal point of the entire project. “The black titanium zinc that already covered the roofs is one of the dominant materials and the color scheme for the entire project has continued this effect", the architect himself stated. The spacious interior of the MOCAK follows the functional logistics of a diffused space, with walkways, galleries, cafés, library and boutiques.

The design of the entire construction is fluid, reinterpreting the previous buildings due to difficulties in organizing the spaces around residual areas in a ring between the buildings, around the museum. "The idea of transforming those places and integrating them with new spaces into a destination for art, culture and contemporary society cannot but bear witness to how undoubtedly memory can be protected, to become a path towards the future".
In 2011, Nardi was awarded the International Biennale Barbara Capoccin Prize for Architecture in Padova and the Dedalo Minosse International Prize to a Client in Architecture, Vicenza for the MOCAK project.

His architecture projects, both public and private, also include the Port Authority headquarters in Marina di Carrara (2007), Vertex Tower and Commerce One offices in Amman, Jordan (2007), Riva Lofts Hotel (2008), the publisher Mandragora’s offices (2013) and a housing complex in the former Fiat factory (2014), all in Florence, together with recent projects for the new City Hall in Krakow and Mu.Ca ((Museo della Cantieristica Navale) in Monfalcone (2017).

With regard to teaching, Nardi has been a university professor for 5 years, lecturing on installations, interior design and planning at the Faculty of Architecture.
He is also Academic Correspondent at the Academy of Art and Design, Florence and is the author of numerous publications in Italy and overseas.
 
Claudio Nardi selected works and projects
 
- Concept store Luisa Via Roma, Firenze (Italia), 2019
- Masterplan nuovo centro urbano e centro espositivo, Veliko Tarnovo (Bulgaria), 2018 - in corso
- Nuova Sede del Comune, Cracovia (Polonia), in corso
- Mu.Ca - Museo della Cantieristica Navale, Monfalcone (Italia), 2017
- Residenza privata Villa Iachi, Marche (Italia), 2017
- Allestimento Aria, Firenze (Italia), 2017
- Residenza privata, Tel Aviv (Israele), 2016
- Allestimento Bridge of Love, Firenze (Italia), 2016
- Complesso residenziale nell’ex area Fiat, Firenze (Italia), 2014
- Sede della casa editrice Mandragora, Firenze (Italia), 2013
- Residenza privata atelier, Firenze (Italia), 2012
- Boutique Emilio Cavallini, Firenze (Italia), 2012
- Complesso cinematografico multisala, Campi Bisenzio, Firenze (Italia), 2012
- Villa Aemilia, Parma (Italia), 2010
- Museo d’Arte Contemporanea MOCAK, Cracovia (Polonia), 2010
- Boutique Clara Lorj, Firenze (Italia), 2009
- Sede autorità portuale (con L. Proli), Marina di Carrara (Italia), 2007
- Vertex Tower, Amman (Giordania), 2007
- Edificio per uffici Commerce One, Amman (Giordania), 2007
- Riva Lofts Hotel, Firenze (Italia), 2008
- Allestimento Museo dei Marmi, Palazzo Medici Riccardi, Firenze (Italia), 2006
- Casa privata, Kuwait City (Kuwait), 2003
- Casa privata, Madrid (Spagna), 2003
- Boutique Papini, Catania (Italia), 2001
- Stabilimento BP Studio, Firenze (Italia), 2001
- Boutique Dolce e Gabbana, Milano (Italia), 1995 e New York (USA), 1997
 
Official website:

www.claudionardi.it

Interview

Flores Zanchi interviews Claudio Nardi.

The MOCAK, the new contemporary art museum in Krakow, was built on the premises of the former Schindler factory. How did you deal with a site so laden with significance?
Claudio Nardi:
Names and words, rather than places themselves, continue to tell their story, to pass on the memory. The old halls of the Schindler factory, which stayed in production until the ë60s, had in the meantime diluted the memory of that dramatic time with the ordinariness of day-to-day life. The project, which combines the existing buildings with new surfaces, is significantly based on the industrial sign characterising the site: the shed roof. Despite the major consolidation of the existing buildings it was possible to reveal only a small amount of the old structures, but we managed to maintain the integrity of the main faÁade and relate it to the new contemporary glass spaces: the wall at the head of the old pavilions, bare and expressive, provides a sign of memory and continuity. The site had a very strong influence on the project, playing a decisive role in determining both the layout, as the area available was broken up, almost hidden and wedged in among the other buildings, and the shapes and dominant signs.
The new parts of the museum form an ideal continuation of the old pavilions. The shed roof extends over the new halls and connects with the deep, tall slate coloured wall projecting as far as Lipowa Street. It was necessary to use a consistent vocabulary to link new and old architecture, extend the sign and the presence of the new structure and give it power and visibility when seen from the outside.

The new building also creates new dynamics in the area, which is increasingly taking on the role of the cityís creative district; what choices did you make in this regard?
Claudio Nardi:
Right from the start of the project we preferred to emphasise the creation of a new urban space which would be permeable, that could be crossed through, transparent, forming a connective tissue and not just an icon of the districtís development and transformation. Starting with its industrial destination, we worked on the new part, which will in the future also include residential units, creating cultural services which would form an integral part of visitors' itineraries in the city.
The dialogue with the “Museum of Memory” located in the building across from the MOCAK, which was also originally part of Schindlerís factory, seemed necessary to me for the story as a whole and its relationship with the new contemporary art museum, which looks towards the future. In this we may find a spark of ideal continuity with history.  The various buildings are arranged around an “urban” path, a walkway through the area, which makes it an “everyday” part of the city.  It is ' the idea of an open museum that accepts and flows into its surroundings, reinterpreting them and becoming a key part of them, because it has a strong connotation:  it belongs to the contemporary.

In functional terms, what are the principles that gave form to the museum?
Claudio Nardi:
The distribution of space is based on the logic of functions arranged in an open space, linked by walkways, loggias, and open areas with a coffee shops, a restaurant, a library and an artistsí studio, particularly the building containing the exhibition areas, which is distributed in fluid form to naturally solve the problems involved in organising planned spaces located in a series of residual areas between buildings, closed to form a ring around the museum.

The choice of materials also seems to span both the future and the memory of the site. How did you choose the materials for the project?
Claudio Nardi:
As I mentioned, the sign of the shed roof is both a historical trace and a contemporary idiom; the black titanium zinc covering the roof has become one of the dominant materials, determining the chromatic register of the whole project. The faÁades of the main building are covered with Fibre C anthracite panels, and this materialís bold force and its colour form the “backdrop” of the site, announcing the presence of the new museum on Lipowa Street, leading the eye through the big windows into the exhibition halls and embracing everything, old and new, summing up and announcing a bold new identity.


The MOCAK opened with an exhibition about your own work. Itís not easy to talk about yourself; how did you manage this?
Claudio Nardi:
Curator Maria Anna Potocka invitation to organise an “exhibition” about my work to open the museum worried me, of course, but it also motivated me to identify a key to the interpretation of my way of dealing with architecture. The result is a story told in images, photographs, videos, works and comments projected on 11 screens in the museum halls. The intention was to tell a story on several different levels, a reading which would be primarily   instinctive and emotional and would make it possible to understand my ideas about beauty, simplicity and complexity, about the whole and the details, about architecture and interiors, about depths and lightness… perhaps it is too much, but it was thrilling as the start of a process of rereading may ideas, intentions and experiments and consolidating my vocabulary.

In Krakow you are also building another building, the COI, the cityís new investment centre. What can you tell us about the genesis of this project?
Claudio Nardi:
The Centre for Investment, like the MOCAK, came after winning a public competition. The complex measures about 120,000 cubic metres, including city offices, departments, councillorships and convention rooms, in a green area in Nowa Huta, the “new” city Stalin built in the ‘50s.  The lotís complicated shape, dotted by trees which we wanted to preserve, might have represented a major limitation in designing a contemporary architectural complex with very high visibility. But our project is inspired by precisely these restrictions in its shape, its power, the reason for its size and colour. The concept is simple yet complex, almost natural: the architectural organism functions like a huge tree, made up of two separate buildings which interact thanks to a complex system of links on several different levels, through which various paths traced by users flow like vital lymph. The building is permeable like a natural element, it is living architecture set in its natural environment, which I can image reflected darkly in its clear white glass, reverberating in the sunlight in summer, contrasting with the greenery of the trees or standing out from the white snow that covers Krakow for several months every year.

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