Fab 40: Bulbo Gallery, Milan

Italy

Completed late last year, the Bulbo Gallery in Milan is a private underground art space by Attilio Stocchi with Gino Guarnieri. Located in the client's back garden, the structure's multi-faceted form is deceptive; rather than exist as a spiky suburban intervention, it is actually buried out of sight, with only the upper portions of the seven light cones poking up above the ground.

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Armed with this knowledge, the multi-faceted interior walls is rather claustrophobic, dark and perverse, with cinematic shafts of light rippling off the angled walls. The apparently random form was derived from the constraints placed by the site – a tree root here, a water tank there, as well as existing foundations scattered around.

Faced with an unruly, awkward plan, Guarnieri and Stocchi simply continued to eat into the space with angles and twists. The result is a mysterious little monument to culture, a secular space with a sacred feel, in line with Stocchi's aim of creating a living, breathing atmosphere. 'In architecture, restraint is always a close friend,' the 44-year old architect says.

www.attiliostocchi.it

15 October 2009 | Architecture