A journey through New Cultural Institutions
Governance Torre Galfa’s squatting event can be read as a symbolic point in the story of Milan’s Cultural institutions. That was a strong act by the citizen, that claimed that the city needed a place for culture and for growing as a society. The reaction of the municipality created an alternative type of governance for cultural institutions: The municipaly became aware of a specifical need of the city. Buys a building from an urban emergency situation, there it begins a project of renovation and reborn. The institution is managed by a private, that rent the spaces of the building in order to keep it economically, to organize cultural events and to make the cultural process happend. This can be seen also as a form of gentrification; Base has becomed an attractive point for people implemented by the presence of few other spaces related to art, design and architecture, that are part of a general plan made by Milan municipality (such as Mudec, Superstudio and the design district). The exasperation of this dynamic was represented by a world invaded by a community of creatives. Eventually the municipality grafts a new community that starts to modify and fix a forgotten piece of the city. This management could sound like the best agreement between the public and the private, and it actually works; but it doesn’t make it a free and spontaneous space for arts and culture. The obbligation to rent, dictated by the type of governance has created a sort of “target” of events to host (in order to keep tha space attractive for specific organizations and audience). Few people after Torre Galfa’s squatting decide to walk a different path and work on a squatted free space for culture in Milan. After moving from Palazzo Citterio, they finally settled
in what is now Macao. The institution is quite far away from the consolidated core of the city but it is truly managed by a private organization through a new experimental governance model. People who works for macao have a basic income to invest in their production.
The self determination is the base of Macao’s governance and economic sustainability, there have been created few tools to manage the income and expenses and the complex system of people around Macao. Moreover, Macao’s spaces are managed mainly by the law “the more you do for macao, the more power
you have to rule it” that encourages and stimulates people to take care of the building. Mare Culturale Urbano seems to have found an alternative way to make an agreement with the municipality. It was first promoted and proposed by the private, that rised the need of a cultural meeting space for the urban quarters of San Siro. San Siro is the results of a modern urban plan for social housing and now lies in a state of almost abandonment and deterioration (of the common spaces mainly) due to the public funds crisis. As many suburbs of Milan it is too far away from the “city center” and it really needs a common space to refer to. Mare’s project is already active thanks to the restoration of one of the elderest building of the area, but there is a project for realize a brand new building for cultural production that refers to the model projected by Cedric Price,
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rise from a citizen need
Property of the municipality but
managed by private organization
big urban emergencies in processing areas of the city
the design district establishment
cultural istitutions’ utopia
the activities are mainly events, courses, concerts and meetings
torre galfa’s occupation
is it? really?
a space for the neightborhood
The aim is to create a community + a space for everybody
agreement
public
conflict
private
fight the squatted place dream - like
reappropriation of city spaces
people choosing their new building/spaces
settle in peripheral areas
creating a new urban community
Miuccia Prada’s volunteer
Giangiacomo Feltrinelli’s dream
Researching center for the development of contemporary society of Milan
Studies the city and its citizen + discusses
“The Fun Palace”, that in some ways embodies the dream-like building of a cultural institution. The realization of this project is funded with public money, but it will be ruled for the first years by the private association, then it will become property of the municipality. In this way the private, starting ruling the place first, gives it a character and an identity that come from the spontaneous initiative of the citizen (anyway the people who really need it), in the way they really want it. Then the structure would be ruled and managed by the municipality, following the already existing programs using the public funds Other institutions are just managed by an entirely private association. Prada is the most typical examples, its governance is more close to a museum’s one, or to a private art gallery. The private chooses and finances the exhibition of permanent but also temporary works of art from the best avantguardes of our contemporary, thanks to the found of Prada’s foundation and the taste of the brand to promote current themes and figurative forms of art. Feltrinelli is the result of an idyllic purpose of one of the most importat intellectual family of Milan, that has always been part of Milan culture, rising economically thanks to a publisher company. The place was realized thank to the capital of giangiacomo feltrinelli, that invested first in a concrete space for it’s aim, a kind of home base for it’s concrete cultural activity. Feltrinelli is not just a space for working, studying, showing, observing and knowing: there are employees who works on reseraches on contemporary society, that anybody has ever asked, because nobody thinks they need it. The type of research they’re making deal with social trends and dynamics, sold to big companies in order to improve their activity. Basically they observe society movements and changes, asserting them in some ways. Eventually researches have an effective influence on companies’ activities, so the foundation is usually paid for its work, but only at work completed. The foundation aims for these companies to start asking for this kind of task first, so contemporary culture would be considered an effective thing in our economic reality and conquer an important role again, fitting in the contemporary philosophy of economic functionalism. This could really be a revolutionary achievement, considering our background public opinion, that
deeply thinks art is unuseful.
Economic Sustainability and Spaces They do exist ways, for new alternative free space for culture, to survive economically. Specially new institutions like Macao, or Base and Mare, which can’t count on an important fund, have created new economic models. For Base the whole organization that manage the spaces is private, and gains money from some of the activities they hosts, in this way they can keep and maintain a free space for working, studying, meeting, to create, think, read, write... But as we said this create few limits to the free and selfdetermined space. This logyc has also consequences in the way the building is conceived: coworking spaces, or anyway temporary spaces, are made for being dynamic and multifunctional. Thus spaces are very flexible but also never personal. Base is managed to be a huge box to be rent where many different things happend, always changing programs and issues. Places like Macao are deeply marked by the presence of people who live the building instead, every single action or modification is just left and sometimes re-used for new installations or events, as part of the liberty palimpsest. Macao never wastes potential resources and its way of self maintaining introduced few tools able to manage all of the the income and expenses and the complex system of people around Macao. One of the most important aim of this system is to avoid accumulation and to keep prices of cultural events low, in order to make them really affordable (almost “free”), even after an agreement with the municipality.They introduced a new currency, the common coins, that is used inside Macao’s system of basic income. Moreover, all of the transaction can be controlled by an On line Platform. Macao’s economic plan and tools make the utopian idea of self-managed space seem more concrete and truly feasible.
intimidation
intimidation
by the building
by the target
comunication designer common person
comunication designer
architect
service designer service designer
visual art
25 years old hipster traveller 25 years old hipster traveller
architect
visualstudent art student
fashion
digital PR
SEO specialist
export manager
dandy reader
lean manager
victims fashion victims
export manager
digital PR
event planner
event planner
dandy reader
SEO specialist
cool hunter
cool hunter
party people
digital strategist
party people
digital strategist
e-commerce manager
lean manager
e-commerce manager
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common person
city’s new avantguarde
city’s new avantguarde
private institution art production process
state institution exhibition and knowledge process
Macao’s spaces instead
Cultural Program The pure and independent choice of any economic or market constraint of cultural events and forms, is probably what makes Macao’s cultural program one of the most interesting and various in Milan. Moreover there is not a defined and common image for Macao to be achieved, but the small organization of via Molise turns out to have many different ideas about the squatted space of dreams. spaces instead So Macao has every nightMacao’s and every day a new identity, completely different from the previous one, thanks to a Plural Utopia of the organization. This is made possible by its governance, that does not define a single responsible figure for all the cultural activity. Macao also provides space for art production as well, and not only for its exhibition. Very often the artistic production is left in private and usually not very suitable spaces, that the single person has to provide himself, meanwhile the public takes care of only the exhibition phase, with museums and public galleries, when the art object already exists. Macao’s approach changes the relationship between production and exhibition, recognizing the artistic process, that becomes the protagonist of Macao’s activities. Like most of Milan’s cultural institutions, Macao’s projects are not only focused on new artistic forms and production but also on general and political contemporary issues, and the spread of messages and discussions, that deal with crucial themes with
a social background. That is what actually a cultural institution is made for. The installation about the cultural production in Macao highlights the importance of interaction between people that should share ideas, opinions and thoughts. Because it involves growth of the cultural environment in addition to the actively participating in contemporary political and cultural changes of the city. Feltrinelli foundation doesn’t have figurative art to show but words to be shared and contemporary topics to be discussed and Mare culturale urbano was created mainly to give people a place to gather in order to build a sense of comunity.
Social Inclusion Basically Mare is “a place to rest and to meet people”. This cultural institution was born e conceived starting from a social need of the neightborhood. Are now famous the projects that claim that San Siro has no spaces for the public life, has no common areas suitable to create a sense of community among a various citizen. Mare is probably the most typical example of this approach with the neightborhood; Feltrinelli’s building is more an attractive point for the whole city and it does not only refer to the surroundings. In this sense the institution really cares of having a contact with the city, not only observing it but also placing to Milan citizen contemporary issues. The relationship of Prada with its context is very simple and often people say it will become a case of gentrification, but actually the foundation “doesn’t really care” about the surroundings, the site was chosen because of the absence of constraints in order to build the eccentric architectural complex with freedom (in fact the foundation’s buildings were kept inside a enclosure). Moreover there are not activities addressed for the neightborhood of any kind. The spaces that OMA is now realizing are addressed to artists and guests of Prada foundation. Macao has instead a complex relationship with the neightborhood; it is in fact an attractive element for the area, that brings interested people from all the city, but it hasn’t still created an effective contact with the surrounding citizen. The project for Base’s spaces is a project for the entire quarters instead: the municipality aims to make Tortona becomes (and it is becoming) the design district of Milan. This is allowed to the amount of decommissioned space to be restored and its predisposition to host artistic activities. So Base’s idea comprises tha context in its intentions, but it wants more to replace the existing neightborhood with a new one, instead of understanding and improving it, giving what the state of fact needs.
Martina Ciceri Laurea Magistrale in Architettura Architettura delle Costruzioni anno accademico 2017/2018