Vitrum & Charta - The cultural library as a mediation between transparency and memory

Authors’ Comment

The “Vitrum & Charta” project proposes a public library and museum in the historic Sant’Eustorgio area of ​​Milan, as an architectural intervention that mediates between the sacred and the profane, between heritage and contemporaneity. The building functions as a civic and cultural catalyst, reactivating the relationships between the community, public space and collective memory, while contributing to the urban regeneration of a valuable but insufficiently activated fabric.
The concept is based on the duality between “vitrum” (glass) meaning transparency and openness, and “charta” (paper) meaning memory and knowledge, suggesting an architecture that honors the past and looks to the future. This symbolic tension is spatially transposed through the dialogue between materiality and light, between massive and ethereal, between exposure and intimacy.
The simple volumetry and modern materials such as concrete, glass, copper, create a controlled contrast with the historical context, avoiding mimicry. Transparency becomes an urban strategy: the city enters the building, and the building opens to the outside, visually and functionally activating the surrounding public space.
Functionally, the project is organized on six levels, with diverse functions: technical spaces, exhibitions, thematic libraries, research areas, workshops and a café with a panoramic terrace. Each floor is conceived as a narrative layer within an architectural palimpsest, in which the user experience becomes a journey through knowledge, memory and reflection.
The new intervention reconfigures the area between the Basilica of Sant' Eustorgio and San Lorenzo, creating a permeable, protective and open space. The project offers a contemporary architectural framework that integrates the historical values ​​of the place, while responding, at the same time, to the social, cultural and urban needs of today's community.