The Ferrarini Theatre of Villafranca di Verona, named after the local soprano Alida Ferrarini, was built from scratch on the foundations of the Metropol cinema, demolished to make room for a new community service centre. The intervention, the result of a partnership between the public, the Municipality of Villafranca and the Veneto Region, and private individuals, cost a total of two million euros.
L’Order of Engineers of Verona and its Province and theOrder of Architects of Verona retraced the construction stages, with a focus on the acoustic design of the main hall.
Ferrarini Theater of Villafranca
“This is a path of best practice in the design field – explain the presidents of the two orders, Matteo Faustiniarchitects, and Matteo Limoniengineers – since the solutions were studied together as the various issues related to the functioning of a space that should have fulfilled the dual function of a multipurpose room and theater were addressed”.
“The Ferrarini is one of the most modern theaters in the province, together with the Camploy of Verona – explains Mario Cognini, president of the Acoustic Commission of the Order of Engineers – built from scratch, was born as an auditorium, then adapted into a theatre. It represents an exemplary case of how to approach correct acoustic design in a hall: an important element in a building that hosts performances”.
The designer, the architect Lucio Merlini, he tells how he conceived the volumes in the theater “which is completely suspended in the void and accessible through a series of paths that connect public areas with private areas, such as garages and homes and which connects with the historic building in via Pace. The theater room is both a place of speech and of representation. For this reason we focused our attention on the acoustics, with the curved ceiling that reflects the shape of the floor. The acoustic level is textbook, so much so that even those positioned in the rearmost area of the room can hear perfectly.”
