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Tuscany. A factory in symbiosis with nature

Prada opens a new production site in Valvigna, designed by Guido Canali as an infrastructure embracing and integrating the landscape.

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  • Luigi Savio
  • 20 July 2018
  • Arezzo
  • Guido Canali
  • 93,125 sqm
  • Factory
  • 2017

Between Prada and Guido Canali there are 20 years of close collaboration. Their silent and intimate relationship has been consciously kept under the radar to achieve consistent results. Mostly representing the aims at the basis of the synergy between the two is the formulation of the concept “fabbrica-giardino”, typological solution combining the landscape with the productive infrastructures through the displacement of the planes.
The structure has been completed in 2017 and inaugurated in June 2018. It’s sited in Valvigna, a location nearby Arezzo reclaimed by Prada group. Exemplary for grafting harmoniously within the rural context, it protects and supports the hosting landscape, rather than jeopardizing it. Guido Canali designs respecting the balance between the worker, the production chain and the territory.

Img.3 Following what has already been done in Montevarchi and Montegranaro, the building is first thought of as part of the landscape
Img.1 The presence of gardens and green spaces, the diffused luminosity, represent the instrument of effective restoration from the fatigue of labour
Img.2The building is designed as a place in relation to the needs of those who will inhabit it, to the eye of those who will see it along the highway, to the surrounding environment that pre-exists and which will remain once finalized
Img.4 The horizontal orientation of the steps marks the whole length of the lot, becoming permeable to the view where the heavy volume of the building disappears
Img.5 As inspiring element there is the belief that workplaces need not be a response to functional and productive needs but on the contrary, must be places of man and for man
Img.6 The continuous search for balance between garden and building, between the rigor of architectural design and the freedom of natural elements

The distribution scheme is clear and well defined: four volumes dimensioned to host program’s variety and flexibility. The building accommodates storages, the historical archive of the previous collections, administrative offices, an auditorium, the production division and the development of Miu Miu and Prada’s collections, technical spaces and the datacentre of Prada group. It’s an autonomous and complete diorama of Prada logistics. Yet, the planar displacement, the choice of one single structural system, the scenographic framing of nature, the manifest duality between the main structure and the spatial interface are all characteristics that render a certain bias for the infinite.

Read also: opened to the public on April 20th, the final addition to the Fondazione Prada’s architectural patchwork has already become the new landmark of the Porta Romana neighborhood.
The factory is revealed in the patios, in the corridors crossed by the light that infiltrates unexpected cuts

The attitude toward the incomplete recalls the academic experiments on the concept of endlessness introduced by Gerhard Kallman, deepen by the Smithson and Price, and inoculated into the provocations of the Archigram. The concept of industrial endlessness is present in Canali’s project, rather declined in a gentle logistic, embracing the landscape, which is embedded in the building by mean of green terraces, water spots and hanging garden. Prada built in Valvigna an architecture living in symbiosis with the landscape.

  • Prada productive headquarter
  • Guido Canali
  • Prada group
  • Factory
  • Valvigna
  • 93.125 sqm
  • 32.431 sqm
  • 19.000 sqm
  • 29.000
  • 20 ton/year
  • 2017
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