Via Dolfi 7

Just Outside, Just Inside

During the 1990s, as commissions became more numerous and the studio grew richer in voices, the founders established their headquarters at the base of a building that, together with its twin, defines the architectural identity of the immediate northern outskirts of the city, just outside the walls, beyond the Mascarella bridge. These are the pointed towers designed by Enzo Zacchiroli, buildings that from their very inception were at the center of debate and are today an indispensable presence. Over the last more than twenty years, the Open Project team has expanded further, to the point that the open space on Via Zago, where the play on words is only partially metaphorical, has begun to feel cramped.

The fortieth anniversary since the firm’s founding thus became the opportunity to find a new space, or rather a place more suitable for a community of designers that, having surpassed fifty members, now constitutes the Company. The choice fell on a headquarters entirely different from the original one, located just inside the walls at Porta San Felice. It is one of the many religious buildings, also devoted to assistance and charitable functions, strung like pearls along the city walls. Built between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it is known as the former Hospital of the Compagnia of the Most Holy Trinity. Its origins lie in a sacred space created to honor an image of the Madonna believed to be miraculous. The portico typical of Counter-Reformation churches was later added, as in comparable examples such as Santa Maria e San Valentino della Grada or the Oratory of San Rocco. During this phase, Floriano Ambrosini was at work here, one of the leading professionals active in Bologna in the final years of the sixteenth century, author for example of Palazzo Zani on Via Santo Stefano and of the Chapel of the Ark of Saint Dominic. At the same time, the Compagnia provided hospitality to a hospital for convalescents, but the arrival of the French in the city at the end of the eighteenth century led to the closure and partial destruction of the complex. Today, the building appears with the arches of the portico infilled yet pierced by large windows. Above them, a mezzanine level is illuminated by low rectangular openings. The whole is unified by a giant order set on a high base of slender Ionic pilasters, a style clearly linked to the church’s original dedication, Madonna delle Vergini. A large volume devoid of external decoration crowns the building above.

The generous interior spaces, frescoed with successive layers of interventions, will allow OP’s designers to spread out and work comfortably, while also providing a place for meetings, continuing to embody the very name of the studio, which was founded to be OPEN.

Text by: Prof. Maria Beatrice Bettazzi