Piazza Solferino: just like two centenary tortoises peeping out from behind the trees, the two huge ATRIUM pavilions emerge from the horse-chestnuts’ leafy branches; a privileged spot for all the activities concerning the 2006 Winter Olympic Games communication and information services; in the centre of the square, at the foot of the equestrian monument of the Duke of Genoa, a multihued crowd skates on the ice-skating rink.
Città di Torino appointed artist Richi Ferrero to conceive an art illumination design for the whole square which would underscore the key role of this area during the Olympics time and that would blend the night view, today featured by the presence of a number of ancient and modern architecture signs sometimes, overlapping in a confused way.
The pavilions, two contemporary buildings endowed with a somewhat temporary feature, enlivened by the skating rink, have been illuminated with architectural dynamic and coloured show lights in order to make the area a sparkling spot.
The sides of the buildings are marked by subtle vertical lights illuminated via led technology which compose and decompose in time, so that the two big pavilions among the leafy tree branches appear to be extremely light, almost airy buildings, while the four corners where the exit-entrance to the buildings are located, are exalted by colour-changing projectors, which, illuminating from the bottom towards the top, produce a rasata light of different colours on the white surfaces of the sails and the exit windows. Eight teste mobili, with their blue beam illuminate the trees and the paths with a continuous movement, creating a suggestive game of light at the sides of the skating rink. Even the bowl-shaped street lamps lining the perimeter of the buildings are illuminated with a blue light together with the thousands of tiny intermittent lights which decorate the fences of the tree areas. The monument of the Duke of Genoa, left out of the game of colours by which he is surrounded, is illuminated instead by a more traditional lighting provided by two crossing white beams.