La Serenissima

Designed in 1962 for Campari by brothers Soncini, the building was considered modern and technologically advanced for its time. The renovation has made it functional and energy efficient while remaining true to its original design approach, almost as if the building had been co-designed fifty years later. The glazed façade is articulated by structural elements and dark opaque sections arranged in almost contrapuntal sequences. The architecture once known as “the black building” before the renovation has returned to its original identity in essence. The internal garden, accessible directly from the street, has been redesigned to soften the monochrome character of the façades with a thousand shades of green.

The building houses offices that have been given generous spaces by reclaiming previously unused areas on the ground floor and introducing a new system of circulation and flexible spatial organisation. A glazed skin composed of variable modules reorganises the ground-floor layout, creating a single entrance. The alternating arrangement of anodised, perforated and electro-coloured aluminium elements framing the transparent panels provides greater flexibility for the internal partitions while softening the contrast between the illuminated interiors and the dark profile of the façade. Along the side elevation, the façades feature smooth, reflective surfaces made of low-iron tempered glass panels, either extra-clear or back-painted in grey.

The new intervention on the ground floor involves the portico leading to the internal courtyard and the two reception areas on either side, transforming the entrance into a permeable threshold between the architecture and the garden. The removal of visual barriers and the continuity of the new black terrazzo flooring, which echoes the paving of the courtyard, visually connects the three spaces and reinforces their sense of unity. A new lighting scheme enhances the portico, highlighting the exposed steel structure and the corrugated metal ceiling panels, while warm materials such as wood interact with pleated aluminium and statuary marble in the reception areas, bringing emphasis to the geometry of the desks, staircases and seating.

The renovation also involved the complete redesign of the internal garden. Together with landscape architect Marco Bay, Park developed a scheme in harmony with the building’s renewed identity. The contrast between the dark grey gravel paving, punctuated by the original ventilation grilles of the basement, the different shades of green introduced through the planting, and the verticality of the façades creates a new visual order and an innovative division of space. The result is a harmonious interplay of simplicity and circularity that enhances the building while returning a remarkable urban garden to the city.