Factory

A place for music

In the Sonus faber facility, aesthetic solutions of contemporary beauty combine with operative logics, architectural design and nature: a glass core enclosed by two wood wings - that remind one of the lute staves - where the natural light spreads out thus creating a harmonious leitmotiv.

The Sonus faber facility project told in the words of its creator: Flavio Albanese

From Agostino's De Musica comes the preliminary consideration at the base of the project: the possibility of linking Music back to mathematical and geometric elements. From the first sketches, depicting sections of lutes, the idea of a shell, of a wooden "skin" with a dual function: "preserve" to produce and "insulate" to create a condition of silence. Just like in a musical score, detachment is created by a diaphragm layer. The north and south facing walls are covered with precious wood, creating a dual curve that does not constitute nor replace the structure but covers, protects and shelters it. The windows are arranged on the east and west facing sides. A space remains between the skin/covering and the building structure. An osmotic point of passage between the exterior and interior, where the presence of nature and dwelling place persists. Northwards lies a type of hortus conclusus, southwards a meditative garden. The two floors of the building receive light from these two interspaces, as well as from a zenith source on the first floor which filters in directly from the roof. Those living and working within this space benefit from a dual condition: natural because bathed in light and the green of the surrounding hills, and unnatural because housed in a context that isolates it from the surrounding industrial development. Here light plays a vital role, giving the organism the strength required for a production dynamic that, through an instrument, has the aim of reproducing sound.