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BUILDING |
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Casalgrande Ceramic Cloud
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DESIGNER |
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CONTEXT |
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| Relationship with the location |
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DESCRIPTION |
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| Casalgrande Ceramic Cloud |
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 We were asked by the world wide known ceramic tile maker Casalgrande Padana to create a monument for a road roundabout in front of their facilities' entrance.
 Being able to work with such a capable manufacturer, we took the challenge of involving the ceramic tile as an architectural element itself, avoiding its conventional use as a mere cladding. Just after developing with Casalgrande Padana's team the specific detail of how to panel and connect their standard ceramic tiles, we understood the possibilities of how to assembly and organize them creating different structures.
With this unique structure we wanted to avoid creating a monument that stands in the middle of the site: we wanted it to become part of the site. Therefore we decided to create a wall that simply divides the site in two making it a special place with a dual character, far from the usual and banal roundabouts. Our anti-monumental approach went far enough to decide aligning the direction of the ceramic wall with the road that leads to it so as to make it almost disappear: when reaching the site, drivers will only perceive a roundabout divided by a vertical line. Only when going around it, along the movement of the car the wall extends until appearing with its whole length of 45 meters.
In our buildings we usually work with concepts of anti-dimension or anti-volume but in a project like this with such a especial site (a roundabout only approachable by cars) we wanted to experiment on these concepts' relationship with dynamic principles such as time, movement and sequential perception.
Seeing this wall growing during its months of construction, we realized how dynamically its light structure's transparency and the subtle reflection of its fine glazed white ceramic where interacting with the surrounding site and the weather. This other way of dynamism appeared to us as a very unique soft, light and ever-changing phenomena… and that is why we have named it as a Ceramic Cloud.
Kengo Kuma |
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| Between production and the work |
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 The Casalgrande Ceramic Cloud, the first work of architecture in Italy by Kengo Kuma, the Japanese master, and a new symbolic gate of the ceramics district of Emilia Romagna, is located in the municipality of Casalgrande, in the province of Reggio Emilia. The work is located near the production works of Casalgrande Padana, the leading company in the production of unglazed stoneware and the buyer of the work itself.
 The CCCloud transversally divides the space of a roundabout like a thin diaphragm curtain dynamically attracting the viewers’ sight.
The layout plan of the work is oblong and streamlined at the ends and the central section reaches a maximum width of 1.7 metres. It is almost 12 metre tall.
For the first time, ceramic material is tested for structural purposes.
Its 3D structure is composed of nine layers of large technical porcelain stoneware slabs – standard production items by Casalgrande Padana – placed one onto the others and interconnected by means of thin hidden threaded bars.
The innovative nature of the project and the need for unconventional solutions called for the active participation of Casalgrande Padana as co-protagonist of the project, constantly exchanging contributions and know-how: on one hand a constant and sophisticated instrumental verification, which has seen two groups of Italian and Japanese professionals involved in a constant remote dialogue; on the other hand the constant design and construction by the experts working for the company of the numerous prototypes which preceded the final construction. |
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VIDEO |
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MATERIALS |
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ceramics, stone, steel Unglazed stoneware slabs 1200 x 600 x 14 mm, stone, steel
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LOCATION |
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| Continent |
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| Nation |
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| Region |
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| Town |
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| Address |
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MAP |
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TYPOLOGY |
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Main |
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ARCHITECTURE | Monuments, decorations, furnishings, graphics
Monuments and works of art
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LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE AND NATURAL ENVIRONMENTS | Landscape architecture
Land Art
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Additional |
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ARCHITECTURE | Urban equipment and structures for public areas
City gates, boundaries, entries
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CHRONOLOGY |
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Realisation |
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2010 |
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BIBILIOGRAPHIC REFERENCES |
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| Jean-Marie Martin, "Casalgrande Ceramic Cloud: installazione monumentale / Ceramic Cloud Casalgrande: monumental installation", Casabella 806, ottobre/october 2011, pp. 44-57 |
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| Kengo Kuma, "Ceramic Cloud, Casalgrande. Kengo Kuma & Associates", L'Arca 265, gennaio/january 2011, pp. 94-97 |
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| Linda C. Lentz, "Casalgrande Ceramic Cloud", Architectural Record 12/2010, december 2010, p. 148 |
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| "Casalgrande Ceramic Cloud. Opera tridimensionale in lastre di grès porcellanato a firma di Kengo Kuma", Geocentro 12, novembre-dicembre 2010, "News" p. 88 |
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CLIENT |
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DIMENSIONAL
DATA |
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| Lenght |
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| Height |
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| Surface |
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STRUCTURES |
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| Ejiri Structural Engineers |
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STAFF |
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| Project |
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| Design concept |
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| Design team |
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| Javier Villar Rujz, Ryuya Umezawa |
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| Structural consultant |
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Ejiri Structural Engineers, Tokyo
Norihiro Ejiri, Pieter Ochelen
Enrico Rombi, Alberto Zen (CCdP) |
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| Architect of record |
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| Alfonso Acocella, Luigi Alini |
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| Urban design |
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| Systems |
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| Cesare Brizzi, Luigi Massa (Casalgrande Padana S.p.a.) |
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| Lighting engineer |
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| Mario Nanni, Federica Soprani |
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| Gestione del progetto |
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| Mauro Filippini (Casalgrande Padana S.p.a.) |
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| Quantity surveyor |
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| Mauro Filippini (Casalgrande Padana S.p.a.) |
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CREDITS |
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Drawings © Kengo Kuma
Text edited by Kengo Kuma, Casalgrande Padana
Courtesy of Casalgrande Padana
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