Migliore+Servetto designs a new format store for Electa bookshops, by creating new spaces for culture and encounter in Rome, within four extraordinary locations of the Colosseum Archaeological Park (Colosseum First Gallery, Second Gallery, San Gregorio al Palatino and Clivo Palatino), and in Venice, in the spaces of the Biennale.
Features common to the various interventions include an extremely light furniture system in the design, which stands out for the choice of light hues and the transparency of the micro-perforated metal sheeting – on design -, but at the same time is strongly characterized by precise color variations different for each store, in the desire to return a unique identity to each space. Thus, to the light shades are added the chromatic elements in perforated sheet, which buffer or act as a backdrop, different presence for each of the stores: the sulphurous yellow for Colosseum First Gallery, the scarlet red for Colosseum Second Gallery, the green celadon for San Gregorio al Palatino and yellow cadmium for Clivo Palatino.
Within each space, to connect and at the same time emphasize the different parts of the store, the format provides full-height graphic fields, such as backdrops of the furniture, to emphasize the identity and uniqueness of the places. Graphic spaces interpreted, between memory and irony, by Studio Sonnoli who has thus chosen to alternate the shelves a narration for quotes and ad hoc references.
The Clivo Palatino store, the last of the 4 newly opened stores, is located inside a newly constructed lower volume, and is characterized by the presence of a large ribbon window overlooking the Archaeological Park. For this store, Migliore+Servetto has designed a series of ad hoc bases placed under the windows. To overcome this furniture some mobile towers allow you to set up the showcase in a versatile and light way, in a continuous addition of perspectives, ensuring the visitors an optimal fruition of the suggestive landscape.
Flexible, adaptable and interchangeable system
The new bookshops conceived by Migliore+Servetto propose a system integrated in the exhibition that enhances the richness of the contents through the lightness of the furniture and puts the visitor in dialogue with the imposing and monumental context in which each bookstore is inserted. The set-up has in fact its strength in being a flexible, adaptable and interchangeable system in the context of the different needs and sizes of the environments and to offer diversified levels of interpretation
The exhibition space is substantially structured on the basis of five main elements: wall display elements to accommodate the different product categories; wall focus elements, for the targeted presentation of individual products or themes; double-sided central elements with function of definition of paths and flows; thematic islands, for an exposition of individual themes; checkout element, for customer support and assistance.
The sign that characterizes both the murals and the islands is “the frame“, with its ability to symbolically and functionally circumscribe the merchandising displayed. In fact, the frame element works synergistically with the product offer, making itself repeated sign, added, juxtaposed according to the needs, acting as a background as well as a support to the products themselves.
Contemporary Wunderkammer
The new spaces, conceived by M+S, focusing on the visitor and thinking about his movements in space, were conceived as paths within a sort of contemporary Wunderkammer, where the visitor is surrounded by the refined selection of texts and objects proposed by Electa, in which you can get lost. Beyond its function as a sales space, the bookshop thus becomes a narrative landscape, a place of discovery that turns in memory, stimulating cultural growth, through a valorization of the wise offer of contents and a constant dialogue with the extraordinary architectural context that contains them.
The project to redesign the Electa bookshop in Rome follows a series of timely interventions to renew and upgrade the Electa bookshop in the spaces of the Venice Biennale (CàGiustinian and Corderie), inaugurated on the occasion of the 59th International Art Exhibition, and at the Lido for the temporary store for the 79th edition of the International Film Festival.
Photos courtesy Andrea Martiradonna
by AN shopfitting magazine no.178 ©
