Luxury yacht manufacturer Sanlorenzo took over the courtyard of Università degli Studi di Milano to tell a story of shipbuilding and the perspectives of being on a boat.
The Fabbrica project, by Piero Lissoni, moves from the iconic installation presented in 2019, which recalled the wooden structures that shipwrights used to construct in the shipyards, to reveal something about the place where boats are built and bring to life at an evocative level the experience of climbing aboard and the new perspectives that ensue.
At the centre of the historic courtyard, a high scaffolding of Innocenti tubes plays with the full and empty spaces of the colonnade, in an interweaving of straight lines that create the pathway for visitors. The structure thus conceived is linked to the industrial nature of Sanlorenzo and refers to the structures actually used to build boats in its shipyards.
The intention of the project is also to try to recreate the vibrant experience of boarding a Sanlorenzo yacht, offering a fascinating elevated view of one of the vessels through a route made up of ramps that take visitors from the ground up to the central part. This area, a platform that cites the shape and materials of a ship’s deck, is designed to give the public the feeling of hospitality that one feels on Sanlorenzo yachts, thanks also to a sophisticated audio system that reproduces recognisable sounds of a luxury experience at sea, as well as offering interesting new viewpoints over the courtyard of the State University.
The impact of the entire installation changes after dusk – the project is open until midnight – revealing a vertical superstructure of LED bars that lights up as night falls, transforming the perception of the installation itself and making it astonishingly scenic.
‘It’s as if we’ve brought a piece of the shipyard into the courtyard of the State University. It almost seems as if yachts are born under cabbages, but the truth is that behind them there is the work of many people, as well as the research, knowledge and technology of a complex industrial reality. The intention for me is to reveal precisely this aspect,’ says Lissoni.
