Labics on Palazzo dei Diamanti's Restoration and New Pavilion in Ferrara

Palazzo dei Diamanti in Ferrara reopens on February 18, 2023, with the exhibition 'Rinascimento a Ferrara. Ercole de’ Roberti e Lorenzo Costa,' following a comprehensive restoration and expansion led by Rome-based architecture firm Labics (Maria Claudia Clemente and Francesco Isidori). The project, which won a 2017 competition by the Comune di Ferrara, involved restoring the historic building designed by Biagio Rossetti in 1492, adapting spaces for contemporary exhibitions, and adding a new lightweight, removable connecting structure between the Rossetti and Tisi wings. The controversial 'pavilion'—a glazed, trilitic walkway—was redesigned after a 2019 dispute, now integrated into a reimagined garden with three 'outdoor rooms' (cortile dehors, cortile del laurocesaro, cortile del Risorgimento). Interior interventions include brass portals in the Rossetti wing, a terrazzo alla veneziana floor, a bookshop with steel shelving evoking Renaissance libraries, and a café with a spatial frame reconfiguring existing concrete pillars. The former Museo del Risorgimento now houses services like a bookshop, café, and educational spaces. Labics also discusses their ongoing Colosseum arena reconstruction project in Rome (won in 2021 with Milan Ingegneria Spa) and their upcoming book 'The Architecture of Public Space' (Park Books, May 2023), a collection of architectural and urban solutions from 13th to 20th century Italian cities.