Architecture of simplicity – Winery in Custoza

The extension of this winery in Custoza makes an architectural statement, effectively establishing a dialogue between the modern and the traditional through a design that synthesizes functional needs and the requirements of sales and customer reception facilities. This is a synthesis that simultaneously embraces the contemporary while not shying away from established building traditions.
The project sets out to effectively bring together the historical core of the building complex, the home, (which is used for customer reception), and the architecture of the extension itself. In its simplicity, the project encompasses the use of stone materials, and creates compositional variations and accents. The wing with the new portico and customer reception and sales area has been placed in a direct relationship with the house, creating a visual continuity in the profile of the volumes, composed of linear and strict geometric proportions, and through the presence of pitched roofs, which create a formal point of identification.
The new building contributes to forming a square courtyard with one open side. With its cobblestone paving, the area makes a statement as a historical element within the complex. A path running at a sharp diagonal angle, highlighted by variations in colour, connects the house to the sales area. This cobbled pathway leads to the entrance gate, a large opening in the wall underscored by its heavy stone slabs. It is further clarified when open, with it exactly in line with the pathway across the courtyard, thus creating a symbolic wall – a massive stone ‘invitation’ to the entrance.
The new building complex is divided into functions. The sales and customer reception area is separated from the production areas by a high timber internal wall, beyond which are the areas where the wine is kept, bottled and made. A second portico, parallel to the portico near the courtyard, is the formal conclusion of the complex and is used for storing tools and equipment.
A defining element of the building is the use of traditional materials from the Verona area, with red nembro marble used for skirtings, cornices, architraves and reveals, and blocks of Vicenza stone used for walls. The stones, which are the same size and quite thick, are assembled without mortar to produce a volumetric mass that is sufficient to take advantage of thermal inertia and therefore reduce as much as possible temperature variations in the winemaking areas.
Combining the traditional and the modern also involves recognizing the characteristics of materials and their properties in terms of thermal balance – for example, without external energy inputs. This contemporary approach accommodates, in a decorative sense, the presence of rough machining and cutting marks on the faces of the stone blocks as a kind of graffiti that becomes an expressive element within a more or less formalized design, without detracting from the unique hewn finish of the nembro thresholds.
The use of technology combines the traditional with the contemporary in the stone finish used for the lintels of the large windows, whose load-bearing function is performed by steel -beams. This adds a dignity and expressiveness to the design, giving the winery elements comparable to a noble villa, while at the same time rejecting strictly technological formulas in the compositional language. This design is not intended to be a reproduction but an interpretation, which is contemporary in every sense, of an architectural theme poised between form and function.

Francesco Pagliari