Brescia, an innovative "New Eden" cinema: the Municipality's project

Brescia, an innovative "New Eden" cinema: the Municipality's project.

The municipal council approved, on Wednesday 26 January, the executive project relating to the "Extraordinary maintenance and technological adaptation of the Nuovo Eden cinema", sent by the Brescia Museums Foundation to the "Completion of the art gallery, redevelopment of the castle and monumental heritage" project unit of the Municipality of Brescia.
The project was carried out by a working group commissioned by the Brescia Musei Foundation, made up of the architects Stevan Tesic and Milena Veljkovic of the Di_Archon Associati studio, the engineer Umberto Bianchini of Fluid Energy srl, and the engineers Michele Camisani, Giorgio Gottardi and Cesare Trebeschi .
The renovation project of Nuovo Eden is part of a broader development plan implemented by the Brescia Musei Foundation starting from 2019 and which focuses on the positioning and strategic redefinition of the objectives of Nuovo Eden, consistently with the statutory mission of the Foundation itself .
The proposed activity aims to establish the Nuovo Eden cinema, managed by the Brescia Musei Foundation, as a place for the promotion and production of arthouse cinema culture and, more generally, as a place for contemporary culture extended and related to audiovisual arts.
The strategic actions under development are the following:

• increase in the network of territorial collaborations, especially with the entities active in the Carmine district, national and international with the Europa Cinemas partners;
• strengthening the theater's authority in the field of film criticism and arthouse cinema;
• expansion and focus of the reference target (elderly, children, young people, cinephiles).

These unfold through four semantic areas:

1. Salle d'essai, a real space for meeting and discussing with directors and operators in the sector for the promotion of auteur and quality cinema;
2. Educational, Film Literacy proposals and film workshops for audiences of all ages;
3. The cinema of reality, a window always open to the contemporary and current issues, networked with local associations and bodies;
4. Art, a space for reflection on the connections between cinema and art, in collaboration with the collections and public engagement area of ​​the Brescia Musei Foundation.

After the difficult period of the pandemic which in 2020 strongly affected the entire cinema chain both in terms of takings - 76% compared to 2019 and in terms of audience attendance -77%, the theater in via Nino Bixio has reopened doors to September 2021 with a season that can rightly be defined as a real gamble. A bet that sees the cinema in via Nino Bixio focus completely on the central role of the theater as a unique and irreplaceable place for viewing cinematographic works, for the emotional experience that derives from it, for the quality of the use of images and sounds and for the cultural and social role it has towards the community itself.

The proposals on the bill have been increased and differentiated, to intercept new audiences and win back those who over the years had found a point of reference in the New Eden, the focus on the quality of the proposal has been further increased, strongly centered on authorial cinema: a profound work of repositioning, which makes Nuovo Eden the Brescia arthouse with a European dimension, a point of reference for auteur cinema in Brescia.

The proposed maintenance and adaptation plan therefore fits into this context of strategic relaunch.
The total amount of the works, for which the Brescia Musei Foundation participated in a regional tender and obtained a non-repayable contribution of 200.000 euros, will be equal to 518.682,59 euros of which 237.730,63 for the works to be contracted out.
For these interventions, carried out by and at the expense of the Brescia Musei Foundation as provided for in article 6 of the agreement for the valorisation of the museum and cultural heritage stipulated in 2015 with the Municipality of Brescia, authorization has already been obtained from the Superintendency of Archeology , fine arts and landscape for the provinces of Bergamo and Brescia.

The project has two objectives, one relating to spaces and the other of an organizational management nature. As regards the first point, the interventions will focus on the remodeling of the reception space (especially the foyer), to adapt it in distribution and functional terms to respect social distancing.
As regards the second objective, however, we will work on the possibility of being able to host other and different types of public, simultaneously or independently of the times and ways of functioning of the main hall, thus expanding the offer and welcoming a specific public by age, by interest and by way of perceiving the shows.
The interventions will concern the two spaces and/or fronts of the building, the front of via Nino Bixio and that of via Federico Odorici, to support the concept of diversified use, in times and ways, of the two screening rooms, of the main room and the new multifunctional multimedia room Odorici.
The new arrangement of the current foyer, in terms of its substantial internal expansion, will include the simultaneous movement of the office block and the repositioning of the ticket office, for the purposes of a different distribution organization and public flows. For better environmental sustainability, the foyer will be affected by a technological implementation of the mechanical and air treatment systems, so as to make them modular and flexible in use to guarantee significant energy and management cost savings. Improvements to general environmental comfort and lighting and acoustic aspects are also planned. Finally, the arrangement of the foyer will be preparatory to the future setting up of a specific bar at the Eden cinema.
The intervention on via Nino Bixio, the main front, includes the arrangement of the first floor façade and the construction of a lightweight screen portal to be placed in front of the existing one, currently in a state of partial degradation and which will be subject to extraordinary maintenance together with the entrance shutter.
All interventions, modifications and distribution and system adjustments are conceived with the prevailing method of addition to the existing: the construction and assembly of the elements envisaged by the project will contemplate possible future transformability, i.e. they will not alter the building system irreversibly (already significantly reconfigured, compared to the original setup, since the last intervention took place between 2004-2007).

In summary, the works on the façade of Via Nino Bixio respond to two requests: the first functional and the second conceptual-architectural, relating to the nature of the design and the chromatic and material aspects of the "screen" which will be superimposed on the existing portal, in relation to the urban context in which it is located.
As regards the first, it is necessary to intervene to introduce the system modifications following the remodulation and division of the internal space of the cinema into several limited areas. The project, as we have seen, will involve the creation of a new multifunctional room on the Via Odorici side, the relocation of the offices, the "translation" of the ticket office block and the provision of a cinema concept bar in the rear area of ​​the foyer , therefore the need to place an autonomous system of air treatment systems in the foyer area and the future bar in direct proximity and spatial correspondence.
As regards the "back window", however, this is conceived (and as such endorsed when awarding the contribution of the Regional Notice) as an external "screen" of the cinema dedicated to a specific program of video mapping projections as part of the planning of the future Audiovisual Arts Center aimed at the urban space of the neighborhood.