Carmelite Cloisters of Carmine in Brescia

The re-functionalization project started in 2001 and aimed at the restoration of the entire complex as a unique structure able to host the central library of the University of Brescia. The intervention shows a multidisciplinary nature because it has been considered in its effective complexity. The entire process has been anticipated and driven by an important work of historic research and a critic comprehension of the building, trying to understand the precise phases of the complex transformation, even thanks to an accurate survey of all forms of decay. The conservative attitude was mediated with the necessity to regain a formal unity, to obtain a rational distributive layout and to facilitate the “readability” of the monument and of its historic overlapping layers. The methodology applied to the work has tried to join the historic and the aesthetic requests, in order to bring back a unitary space and not many different incoherent fragments. This logical approach has lead to the introduction of contemporary furniture and lighting inside the historical rooms.