About fifty boys from classes 4th B (figurative arts) and D (scenography) of the Artistic High School of Varese painted approximately 80 square meters of wall inside the access tunnel to the Circolo hospital, from the entrance on viale Borri.
A place of passage often faced with concern by those who go to the hospital, now full of colors and images that tell of the symbolic places of the garden city, from Bernascone to Sacro Monte, its more or less young inhabitants and a window on the rest of the world, between exotic animals and fantastic subjects. All held together by a long stylized DNA chain.
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From passage gallery to art gallery: the Circolo hospital tunnel reopens 4 of 14
«A choral work», explain the teachers Claudia Canavesi and Constantin Migliorini who coordinated the project, inserted within a school-work alternation, which started last year. «All the boys participated in the architectural surveys of the tunnel and in the planning with several sketches produced inspired by the theme of the hospital as a reference for the entire community of the city and beyond».
FROM SERVICE GALLERY TO ART GALLERY
It was 1911 when the Circolo Hospital of Varese moved from Piazza Giovine Italia to Viale Borri. And the “Service Gallery” as the pedestrian tunnel that leads from viale Borri to the central pavilion was called, was immediately one of the main access routes.
Even today, even after the inauguration of the Monoblock, it continues to represent a very popular passage.
«The children’s sketches were all of the highest level, and all original», says the administrative director of Asst Sette Laghi, Ugo Palaoro. Hence the idea of proceeding with a synthesis of the different proposals capable of keeping together the different ideas developed by the students.
Once the final sketches were completed, the cartoon phase took place, which consists of dismantling each drawing into approximately fifteen parts, in order to then enlarge them using the full-scale projection method. «With this technique it was possible to transfer the drawing to the wall with the dusting method».
The final result is a pictorial composition that develops on both sides of the tunnel for the first 20 meters from its entrance. An art gallery in which floral and architectural elements, figures and small paintings alternate.
«The work done by the boys was excellent – explain the principals Anna Pontiggiawhich saw the project born last year, and Saint D’Angelocurrent head teacher of Liceo Frattini – They managed to bring color and beauty to a tunnel that I had previously defined as a long ‘gut’ and which today has become an art gallery.”
«I thank Asst Sette Laghi for the wonderful opportunity offered to the Frattini students to face a real task during the alternation course – comments the administrator Giuppe Carcano – Impacting reality, improving people’s lives is a desire of all young people and precisely in this way, thanks to this project, it will be possible to make the many steps, often full of worries, that will cross the tunnel of the Circolo Hospital lighter from now on”.
An opportunity that the kids were able to seize and make the most of. “It’s nice to think that thousands of people will see our work and that perhaps even our children will be able to admire it, in a key place in the city,” said one of the students.
School-work alternation rarely involves a public space, and even more rarely leaves a positive mark in the space shared by the community. The satisfaction is great for all those involved, starting with the young artists and their teachers.
«Certainly in the future the hospital company will have to arrange the second part of the tunnel which today appears damaged – states Palaoro – It would be wonderful to be able to continue the decorations with tomorrow’s students of Liceo Frattini».
