The architect Andrea Magiorelli’s plans for the new Diagnostics Centre highlight the characteristics of the building: curved, clear-cut lines, light, bright transparency of form.
The drawings and external views also show the pleasing shape of the construction, with columns that create a wing forming the building’s shell – welcoming like the hull of a ship. In both a figurative and real sense, this ship embraces the space inside it, protecting the delicate workings of the Health Centre housed within.
At one and the same time, the structure is building and architecture, form and construction. Indeed, as Antonio Migliacci comments in his work, “L’architettura dell’equilibrio e della deformazione”, Vol.I, pag. 13, Milan “Structures are not simply an idea, but they are flesh and bone, or rather, they are formed using building materials. Once they have been brought to life with these materials, the structures are able to carry out their task. How well they fulfil this task depends on the kind of body and form that they have been given.” It is not by chance that the advanced diagnosis takes place on the lower ground floor, where the structure is more solid, whilst more straightforward tests are carried out on the first floor where the structure is more airy and transparent.
The columns on the ground floor that connect and unite the external with the internal, and the spiral staircase which connects the enclosed space indoors with the space outside, illuminated by natural light, are important characteristics of the building. The daylight illuminates the spiral staircase, which stands out even further because it is built in white concrete.
As well as this, the architect has considered the link between the building and the city: the building’s long, arched shape, embraced by the wing-like frame meets the requirements of initial plans, since it makes best use of a long and narrow plot of land and can only be seen from one angle. Because of this, the building, like an arrow, holds the gaze of passers-by and on entering the building they notice the spaciousness of the interior. This sensation is increased still further due to the harmonious form of the white concrete spiral staircase situated in the centre of the entrance hall.
The strategic location of the staircase (which has the same lightness to it as the wooden staircase by Albini in the Via Cavour building) is accompanied by the equally strategic columns in the entrance hall and porch. They are embedded tripartite columns which branch out and take on the form of a forest of mulberry trees.
These columns welcome the visitor and are covered by transparent glass walls. An airy, tree-filled porch which provides support for the upper floor. Here there is not a rational-international architectural style but rather a more organic and natural design which is completely in line with the important not only technical but also human functions that are carried out in the building.
The entrance porch provides a filter between the outside and the inside and so a similar material is used for the flooring inside and beneath the porch.
The architect’s attention to detail means that the external shape of the building is projected onto the pavement outside, and this attention to detail is continued with his use of materials and columns. For the essential and at the same time aesthetic function of colonnades see: L. Benevolo, writing about Le Corbusier in Storia dell’Architettura Moderna, Roma.
As Nervi said, external architecture is not simply a cover that is placed over the structure but rather it characterises the front and rear of the building and the side walls, the latter broken up with pillars of reinforced concrete and the former with steel structures A glass building is transparent and so shows all of its important structural elements.
A note of merit in this regard goes to the Client for having allowed the planning and building stages to go ahead simultaneously, avoiding fragmentation and so obtaining a technically and aesthetically unified finished result.