ARCHIVI APERTI

Project for an archive in the Cittadella degli Archivi Milan, Italy

As part of the Milan municipality‘s initiative to bring together in a single physical location all documents relating to the city, the project asks the question of what form the container of collective memory should take and what relationship it should have with citizens. The project includes the expansion of the existing mechanised archive and the design of spaces for the consultation and restoration of documents and for their exhibition, whit also spaces for educational activities related to the archive. Several spaces are dedicated to cultural activities of more general and public interest - a cafeteria, multifunctional spaces available to associations from the neighbourhood, study and workstations, an open-air theatre. The intervention inside is accompanied by the redesigning of the surrounding greenery, which becomes a vehicle for paths reconnecting the area to the neighbourhood. The Cittadella opens up in relation to the context and the inside it the archive is offered to the curious in all its parts. The intention is to share every moment of the archiving process, from the arrival of the document to