THE FLOW

1. Project Overview At the entrance of Pavia’s historic center, along the Ticino River, the former seaplane hangar Idroscalo stands as a significant relic of early 20th-century northern Italian industrial architecture. Following the decline of the regional aviation industry, this once-vital structure was left abandoned. The Flow seeks to revive it as a contemporary Mediatheque, preserving the collective memory of the city while establishing a new cultural current in the everyday life of local students and residents.

2. Design Concept The original hangar embodied opposing forces — ascent and descent, lightness and grounding, the fluidity of the river and the solidity of the land. The project reinterprets this “balance of forces” through architecture. New volumes are inserted within and around the existing shell, amplifying the dynamic movement between earth, water, and sky — spatial metaphors for the passage of time: past, present, and future. The Mediatheque becomes a symbolic vessel where these temporal and spatial layers converge, housing archives, workshops, and digital media spaces that bridge eras.

3. Spatial Strategy Inside, the visitor follows an architectural promenade tracing the evolution of media over time. Beginning at the water level, ascending through the ground, and rising toward the sky, this path transforms movement into an experience of time. Each sequence opens to shifting views of the Ticino River, allowing the building to once again flow with its landscape.