et in a historical building in the center of Milan, the SICIS
showroom is based on a modern display concept aimed at
highlighting mosaics in all their expressive possibilities. Designed
by architect Marco Piva, the showroom is laid out on three levels –
basement, ground floor, first floor – arranged in a horseshoe around a
modern connecting stairway, for a total of 7,200 square feet.
The ground and first floors provide the main showroom spaces, the
basement level is reserved to consulting services and displaying the extensive
sample collections of SICIS mosaics. The underlying concept of the project
is the ‘visual transparency of mosaics’, starting from the large street-level
windows and expressed inside the showroom with the flexibility and
chameleon-like ability to change ‘skin and material consistency’, with
applications on walls, floors and moveable structures.
Side page:
a view of the first floor.
Much attention has been paid
to the lighting project, with projectors
emphasizing the display panels, as they
were paintings in a gallery.