Leather Museum, Santa Croce sull’Arno

Description

The Leather Museum of Santa Croce sull’Arno recovers part of the former Lapi Tannery and Municipal Slaughterhouse complex along Via della Pelle, transforming a disordered and degraded industrial area into a recognisable civic and cultural place. A close survey of the existing buildings, supported by detailed photographic investigation, made it possible to identify which portions could be restored and which had to be replaced, balancing museum requirements with the actual condition of the structures. The intervention was conceived not only as a museum but as an act of wider urban regeneration. The central part of the site is freed and turned into a regular public piazza facing the street, enclosed on three sides by museum buildings obtained partly through restoration and partly through new construction. On the north-east side, the Lapi Tannery is preserved in its regular volume after the removal of precarious later accretions and with limited structural consolidation of floors and roof. It is conceived as an archaeological relic of work, to be crossed as part of the museum route together with machinery, materials and traces of production returned to their original spatial setting. The most valuable part of the slaughterhouse, its monumental façade, is preserved as the entrance gate to the complex. A new slender lenticular building, formed by a continuous reinforced-concrete structure clad inside and out in solid face brick, connects at its transparent ends with the old tannery and with a long access loggia, forming a C-shaped composition around the new piazza. Entry takes place through a full-height transparent corner volume reached by a covered path from the street. Inside, a simple double-height hall is crossed for its full length by a gallery, linked to the ground by a broad two-flight stair and by a glazed iron-and-glass lift placed on the central axis. Light is brought from above through a long skylight, while the limited number of openings preserves the continuity of exhibition surfaces. Toilets, porter’s lodge and cloakroom are integrated with the same clarity, and the heating plant is housed in an independent parallelepiped volume. The museum route begins in the new building, where exhibition materials explain the processes of leather tanning and their historical development. It then passes through a glazed link into the old tannery, where the visitor crosses the existing vats on a light iron walkway, moves through the former working rooms overlooking the piazza, reaches a large helical stair and ascends to the upper level beneath a wide field of hides hung from hooks fixed to the exposed roof structure. At the far end, the old building opens towards the new one through a transparent glass diaphragm and terrace; a second glazed route leads back to the gallery of the lenticular volume, from which the main stair returns the visitor to the exit. The whole complex is deliberately sober, built from blind brick walls and a controlled use of glass, while robust structural choices and durable materials — solid brick, coloured quartz-finish concrete floors and safety glazing — are intended to guarantee long life and easy maintenance.