Cavagnari Services Centre, Parma

multipurpose building

project

1983 - 1985

construction

1983 - 1985

location

Parma via La Spezia 138

collaborators

Elena Balsari Berrone (progettista del verde)

builder

Austin Italia

client

Cassa di Risparmio di Parma

manufacturing technology

Façade: prefab exposed brick panels; curtain wall; Carrara marble

Roof: copper pyramid-shaped spires; flat copper sheet roof (unusable)

Windows: metal

Load-bearing structure: beams and piers in reinforced concrete

description

Magistretti was commissioned the Cavagnari Service Centre by the Cassa di Risparmio di Parma and Austin Italia which had also commissioned the architect a school in San Daniele del Friuli.

The sprawling complex was to host the bank's new offices and services located around the tech centres. The latter, built above ground because the lot was in danger of being flooded due to the low-lying water table, became the geometric hub of the entire complex. The tech centres are surrounded by an initial belt, a curvilinear building next to four towers with vertical distribution systems that use suspended concrete bridges to connect the first belt to two office blocks and the Data Processing Centre. This semicircular building, housing the auditorium, rises up from this latter volume. The complex includes a branch of the bank open to the public (designed as a simple parallelepiped) and storerooms for printed matter.

Special attention was paid to providing the offices with good natural lighting: the choice fell on big ribbon windows alternating with the prefab exposed brick panels. The intrados of the panels creates an interesting shadow pattern; the porticoes on the ground floor of many of the buildings also inputs into the creation of this shadow pattern.

Magistretti's interesting choice to use brick recalls the building traditions of the low-lying part of the Padana plain.

bibliography

G. P. Boetti, Perché il liceo classico produce i creativi, in La Stampa, 04 aprile 1986

G. Carrari, Un italiano che piace a Londra, in Corriere della Sera, 16 aprile 1986

C. Morozzi, Il conforto viene da Mozart, in Modo, gennaio 1987

W. Pagliero, Architettura come rappresentazione, in Casa Oggi 163-164, febbraio 1988

Incontro con Vico Magistretti, in Casa e giardino, settembre 1989

R. Roda, Tecnocentri bancari, in Modulo 156, novembre 1989

C. Bellini, Vico Magistretti. Il mestiere di architetto, in Office Furniture, supplemento Habitat Ufficio n.43 43, aprile 1990

F. Sironi, Vico Magistretti, in Amica 8, 25 febbraio 1991

Austin Italia: nasce il Gruppo BM, in Modulo 174, settembre 1991

M. Gregotti, Il design come diario personale, in Elle Decor 9, settembre 1993