Magnifica Fabbrica
The “Magnifica Fabbrica” project creates a new site for the Teatro alla Scala laboratories and warehouses as well as the expansion of Parco della Lambretta, giving shape to an innovative cultural, artistic and production center for the city of Milan. The Magnifica Fabbrica is envisaged not only as a place for the making of the amazing sets, costumes and scenic artifacts of the theater, but as an actual city-stage. Everyone becomes a spectator of a show that is always in progress, participatory and dynamic, where the protagonists are not the actors who typically go on stage but the scenic artifacts and the women and men who are the creators of these works.
The project aims to reproduce that sense of suspension of time and space that you breathe during the Teatro alla Scala performances, spreading out the magic of the theater from the stage to the whole city
Typology: Art, Laboratory, Workshop
Location: Milan, Italy
Year: 2022
Site area: 160,000 sqm
Client: Comune di Milano
Status: International competition
Design team: Stefano Andreani, Mirko Billi
Visualizations: Mirko Billi, Serena Biccari
Magnifica Fabbrica openly shares and makes visible and invisible: the “behind the scenes” becomes instead the stage of Milan, breaking down its walls and revealing the hidden beauty behind the complex stage machines that animate the sets of the Teatro alla Scala.
From an architectural point of view, this opening is interpreted by metaphorically translating the Scenic Tower of La Scala from the theater to the Magnifica Fabbrica and transforming it into a transparent and permeable building. The new tower is the centrepiece of the intervention and acts as a driving force for the creation of an attractive and inclusive place. The square in front of the tower thus becomes an urban stage that invites even those who are perhaps less interested in operas to get exposed to this “magnificent” art form.
