PALAZZO DEL CINEMA , Locarno, Suisse

LOCATION : Locarno, Suisse
PROGRAM : Competition for the new Palazzo del Cinema
DATE : 2012

For the international open competition to design the new Palazzo del Cinema of Locarno, PLC architectures have team up with the firm Atelier MEP.
The Palazzo del Cinema will house the widely known International Film Festival of Locarno.
The design proposal is not only for a building fulfilling the functional needs of the festival and its organization but also for an urban scheme that allows to establish a grounded relationship of the site within the existing urban structure.
The buildings housing the three movie theaters are organized around a public atrium space, articulated in two connected areas, the “upper foyer” in direct relationship with the open air pedestrian piazza at street level, and the “lower foyer” in direct relationship to a proposed public garden which will serve, during the festival, as the open air movie theatre.
These two “foyer” spatially connected in a single public atrium will naturally convey and focus the public’s  circulation thus creating an urban pole, in coherent complementarity with the Piazza Grande ,of the close-by city cente, and traditional gathering point during the festival.