 CAMPIONE D´ITALIA CASINO, 1990-2006, Campione d’ItaliaCAMPIONE D´ITALIA CASINO, 1990-2006, Campione d’Italia
CAMPIONE D´ITALIA CASINO, 1990-2006, Campione d’Italia
CAMPIONE D´ITALIA CASINO, 1990-2006, Campione d’Italia
The sumptuous mass of the building is embedded in the small-scale urban fabricof the italian enclave of campione and reapperas mirrored in the waters of lake Lugano
Arriving at Campione from Lake Lugano, the visual impact of the Casino complex designed by Mario Botta is certainly remarkable. Despite its size - 40,000 square meters laid out on ten floors, with some 18,000 square meters underground as parking space - the open structure, with the central body and two wings descending towards the lake, reclines naturally in a hollow in the hills of the surrounding landscape.
Respect for the landforms and the historical and cultural setting is the key element of the design by Botta, who developed his philosophy in contact with giants of architecture such as Le Corbusier, Louis Kahn and Carlo Scarpa.
In Botta's work history, culture and tradition do not exclude the recovery of ancient materials in contemporary ways, used for their functionality as well as aesthetic qualities.
This is the case of the golden stone known as Pietra Dorata di Manciano, a Tuscan sandstone, especially popular for its decorative coloring.
But what makes the Casino truly futuristic are the building technologies, developed specially for the complex, in particular the raised metal truss roof.
The outer facing consists of slabs 3 centimeters thick made from 4000 tons of stone hewn from the quarries at Manciano. They are hung from the reinforced concrete structure with inserts anchored to steel profiles.
This technique - with ventilated walls - creates a cavity between the outer stone facing and the concrete structure, ensuring optimal insulation for the building on the outside. It also enables the stone slabs to be used safely for the outer ceilings and each slab to be hung independently of the others, to facilitate their later maintenance or replacement.
The building has curved surfaces with large flat areas and corner joints: the complex compositional harmony called for the finest technologies and all the skill of Furrer's technicians and craftsmen for completion.
Like a giant mosaic of rectangular stone slabs, they were laid by alternating surfaces with a glossy texture and a sand-sawn finish to bring out the stone's characteristic pinkish hues.
Botta chose the Pietra Dorata as the external facing for this building. Its coloring of yellow-ocher with brown veining clearly expresses his intention to highlight the values of brightness, warmth and receptiveness, typical of the functions that the building is intended to fulfill, since it is not merely a gaming hall but also planned as a meeting place with a focus on socio-cultural activities. The Pietra Dorata is a stone material quarried in Tuscany (specifically at Manciano in the province of Grosseto), and is particularly favored by designers. Botta himself had already used this stone in one of his most highly admired works, the Cymbalista Synagogue and Jewish heritage Center in Tel Aviv, while Aldo Rossi likewise specified it as the facing material for the interior of Milan Malpensa Airport.
Michael Wilford used the Pietra Dorata for the interior facing of the prestigious Esplanade music complex in Singapore.
The slabs of varying sizes, but all 30 millimeters thick, are laid predominantly in regular courses while the external curvilinear structures are faced with sheets of stone laid in regular courses but with different widths.
The load-bearing structure of the Casino is made of reinforced concrete cast
in situ, a method which does not always guarantee the absolute verticality
of the elevations for the correct installation of stone cladding. To correct this
an intermediate metal framework consisting of steel uprights fastened to the concrete with expansion bolts was inserted.
The technique used to connect the anchors to the stone is completely innovative. They are secured with metal inserts in the back of the stone slabs, a solution that emerged from a careful study by two leaders in stone cladding: GS Engineering in Carrara, a successful and well-known company that specializes in designing external cladding, and Edilmontaggi in Bergamo, an industrial contractor with vast experience in the international arena.
This is a method that involves the use of threaded pins inserted in holes 18 millimeters deep, with the ends shaped (using special equipment) with a diameter slightly larger than the hole itself.
Thanks to this device it is possible to fit the steel insert into the hole. The insert consists of an outer cylinder and the threaded inner pin. Standard pneumatic equipment is used to "pull" the inner threaded pin, whose travel produces the flared deformation that forces the outer cylinder to hew closely to the terminal shape of the hole so that it is immovably fixed.
The system is highly effective in ensuring the attachment of the stones.
It also makes it possible to work on a single slab if it needs to be replaced, without having to disturb the adjoining slabs, as is usually the case.
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