Mediterranean Cultural Gate

What: Competition for the transformation of former movie theatre “Orchidea” into a new cultural and artistic center.
Who: Comune di Reggio Calabria
Where: C.so Vittorio Emanuele III – Reggio Calabria - Italy
When: 2021
AREA: 1.800 mq
AREA49: Giacomo Penco, Marilena Magalotti, Davide Camera

The renovation proposal for the former movie theatre "Orchidea" in Reggio Calabria city center aims to narrate the building's past, enhancing its functional, historical and morphological remembrance. The project aims to revitalize this shard of the city through the use of technological solutions, offering at the same time a new visual look. Thus, original compositional choices and styles were valued, purifying the architecture from incoherent modifications layered over time. The attempt is reconstructing a compositional bond between the construction era that has generated the building, understanding, and valuing the rationalism-inspired geometries. In the research for spatial and volumetric valorization, the original roof is substituted with a new flat one. The renovated crown works as an overlook onto the sea, built around the new cactus garden. The contemporary arbor entitles the intervention of urban recognition. Plus, it configures a social space in which conviviality is the relating attribute among the sea, the city, the garden, and the restaurant. The social and cultural re-functionalization of the building, together with the valorization of original geometries and materials, is meant to enhance the historical role of the building as a catalyst for human and urban interactions. The Travertine on the facades and the light-colored rough plaster characterizing the historical center are in dialectic relation with a new yet ancient material: bronze. It becomes the project's compositional element of blending.