Studiomas Architects

Museo Bailo

Museo Bailo
© Marco Zanta

Museo Bailo

Studiomas architetti associati

ARCHITECTS
Studiomas architetti associati

TYPE
Cultural › Museum

AREA
10,000 sqft - 25,000 sqft

YEAR
2015

BUDGET
$5M - 10M

PHOTOS
Marco Zanta (12)

LOCATION
Treviso, Italy

ARCHITECTS
Studio mas (marco rapposelli, piero puggina), heinz tesar

SITE SUPERVISION
Marco rapposelli (studio mas)

STATUS
Built

CLIENT
Città di treviso

EXHIBIT AND INTERIOR DESIGN
Studio mas (marco rapposelli, piero puggina)

STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING
Studio di ingegneria rs

COLLABORATORS
Elena gomiero, enrico polato, mattia arcaro, andrea zuin

GENERAL CONTRACTOR
Due p costruzioni

PHOTOGRAPHS
Marco zanta

INTERIORS CONTRACTOR
Harmoge

MECHANICAL AND ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING
Studio cassutti sas

A cruciform facade marks the new entrance to this art museum, which occupies a 15th-century monastery building in Treviso, a historical city located near Venice.

Museo Bailo
© Marco Zanta
Museo Bailo
© Marco Zanta

The Museo Bailo hosts a collection of 20th-century art, but was closed 15 years ago as the former monastery building was in need of significant refurbishment.

Studiomas architetti associati with austrian architect Heinz Tesar won a competition to renovate the museum in 2010.

Museo Bailo
© Marco Zanta
Museo Bailo
© Marco Zanta

The architects added a new frontage to the southern end of the historic building, which was bomb-damaged during the second world war and reconstructed in 1952.

The cross-shaped form is made from panels of articifical stone dotted with small perforations.

It is mounted in front of walls coated in a type of polished plaster called Marmorino, which is made from a mixture of Carrara marble and white cement.

Museo Bailo
© Marco Zanta
Museo Bailo
© Marco Zanta

The museum needed a new facade, more adequate to its institutional role and to its position in the centre of the ancient town; the existing facade, rebuilt in 1952, was totally lacking in quality.

The new facade, a composition of eight precast artificial-stone slabs, stands out in a white marmorino background. Behind the façade an extension made from white concrete was slotted into a narrow inner courtyard.

It forms the museum's new arcade and hosts ticket hall and book shop, but is also used as an exhibition space and conference hall.

A skylight runs the length of the 28-metre-long extension, helping to bring natural light into the building.

Museo Bailo
© Marco Zanta

Three windows – one in the axis of the cross, another to the right of the door and a third in the flank of the extension – face onto a small piazza in front of the building.

One of these windows provides a view into the southern cloister, where a sculpture of Biblical figures Adam and Eve is displayed.

The work was designed by Arturo Martini (1889-1947), a Treviso-born artist whose paintings, sculptures and graphics are included in the museum's collection.

Museo Bailo
© Marco Zanta

The gallery walls are covered in sand-coloured stucco and the floors are made of terrazzo, Carrara marble and white cement – a reference to the finish used on the building's outer walls.

Partition walls were removed from rooms in the old part of the building to reveal the original layout, which now features a series of wide, vaulted galleries.

Museo Bailo
© Marco Zanta
Museo Bailo
© Marco Zanta

A conservative restoration of all the building's original decorative elements, materials and structures has been achieved in the cloister, in the vaulted rooms as well as in the wall's decorative paintings.

Sculptures are displayed on a series of mottled grey plinths and in vitrines designed by the architects. All the bases, the glass cases, the tables and the furniture have been re-designed like a family of small architectures serving the art works, hosted in the ancient rooms of the museum. The museum reopened to visitors at the end of October 2015.

Museo Bailo
© Marco Zanta

Studiomas Architects
T +39 049 8764030
Studiomas Architects
Via Gabriele Falloppio, 39, 35131 Padova PD, Italy