As we have seen for Officiamuseum, it will be necessary to envisage the creation of a visible center of the “system” of Officiamuseumed. What should it be like? What requirements should it have? Although we are in the scientific context of Company Museums or Corporate Architecture (which is mentioned later by Jochen Siegemund), the architecture of this “museum” should not express a company’s brand (like corporate museums) but the “brand” of an entire productive landscape and, therefore, of more companies within a territory with construction methods, materials, techniques related between them and the same “tension” design belonging to artidesign.

A paradigmatic example is the Museo Casa Enzo Ferrari. “It is a museum that celebrates the role of Modena in the evolution of Italian high-performance cars: the home not only of the Ferrari, but also of the Maserati factory. Modena is one of those special places where the tradition of Italian craftsmanship has met engineering, giving rise to a series of cars charismatic that, with irrepressible beauty, united a unique power performance”. With these words, Deyan Sudjic talks about what he calls “[…] a monument to the vision of the project by Jan Kaplický” in the book entirely devoted to the museum. Not a corporate museum but of companies, those between Parma and Bologna, producing cars and motorcycles, sports and racing cars (Lamborghini, Ducati, Maserati, Ferrari, Bugatti and De Tomaso) for a lifetime and that represent Italian excellence in these two areas.

The last work of Kaplický, who with David Nixon in the late 1970s founded Future Systems, was inaugurated in 2012, three years after the laying of the first stone, and his death. For the purpose of the speech, we should highlight some important aspects that are inseparably related to architecture and the symbolic value/strategy of this museum: the goals, the client, the place in which it arose, shape and colour as well as the use interior spaces. The purpose was stated above. The museum was not to be dedicated to a single car, the Ferrari (which incidentally has its corporate museum in Maranello), but had to express a corporate culture that is the flagship of a territory. It is for this reason that the work was commissioned by the Enzo Ferrari Birthplace Foundation, a mix of public and private organizations which is part of the City, the Province and the Chamber of Commerce of Modena, the ACI and Ferrari SpA and chose the instrument of the international competition to decide who to entrust the project to. The site is of high cultural value and symbolic. The museum, in fact, is built next to the nineteenth-century birthplace of Enzo Ferrari, in an area rich in dealerships and factories of car parts, not far from the centre of Modena, from the Piazza Grande, the Cathedral and the Ghirlandaia Tower, all UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

The work, then, could not but be strongly characterized. The form – the description of which is conveniently summarized by Sudjic: a “high-tech bulb encircled by grass” that like “a protective hand” cradles the birthplace of Enzo Ferrari – enclosing the dual need for mythical roots to an exemplary company story, with a strong and innovative affirmation, respectful but without submissions. Even the colour is the result of a reasoning that is attentive to the meanings. Not “Ferrari Red” that would end up favouring one company, but rather the “Modena Yellow” more connected to the place in which they all could be recognised. Finally, the structure of the museum: a permanent exhibition of the life of Enzo Ferrari, organized in the restored product and a space for temporary exhibitions in the new building can accommodate up to seventeen cars that Kaplický imagined placed on rotating rectangular platforms mushrooms with thin stems.

What the Mediterranean Museum System Design and Applied Arts would be like is hard to imagine, at least in the details Officiamuseumed is taking shape as a scientific project through a Summer School aimed at German, Turkish and Italian students of the three partner universities, aimed above all at understanding the similarities and differences between the different territories and creating a first international station with which to operate in the future. A project that aims to be practical, with it being be realized in the coming years. In fact, the difficulties are immense. Consider a future extension of the “system” to other countries in the Euromeiteranea (over 35 EU countries, North Africa and Asia-Mediterranean), with it being very difficult, perhaps impossible to create. Moreover, Officiamuseum in Campania, as a set of companies and museums, has been blocked for about ten years, even if a small temporary museum in Pompeii is being realised as the centre of the system. The opening of an initial location in Turkey might even give new impetus to the project in Campania. Perhaps, this is a utopia, a dream that takes on the contours of a feasible international grouping of universities, museums and local small businesses for excellence to build a huge creative community, open to dialogue, focusing on local diversity, one the one hand, and on the matrix artigianal-design, on the other. The Summer School will be able to develop a possible and flexible model, carrying out a small scale experiment, on only two territories, in Italy and Turkey with only three initial partners. The scientific collaboration between universities has already been tested successfully.

It will also try to create a dialogue between companies and their museums as well as convince the various operators that this is a great, cultural, economic and productive opportunity. As with the other systems, it will have to take into account the connections that, being all virtual but physical, will ensure maximum speed and ease and be, of course, sustainable, smart.

 

GAMBARDELLA C, SIEGEMUND J (2013). Smart communities and local company museums: two new concepts for the Mediterranean Museum System of Design and Applied Arts. In: HERITAGE ARCHITECTURE LANDESIGN focus on CONSERVATION REGENERATION INNOVATION Le vie dei Mercanti _ XI Forum Internazionale di Studi. p. 988-998, Napoli:La scuola di Pitagora editrice, ISBN: 978-88-6542-290-8, Aversa – Capri, 13/15 Giugno).