People and Products

It’s not always easy to be an architect in modern Italy, where contemporary design must measure itself against the weight of historic patrimony. That was clearly the case for the Florentine studio Avatar Architects when it won the commission to install the city’s collections of 20th-century Florentine art in a minor Renaissance masterpiece, Michelozzo’s Hospital of San Paolo, located in the Piazza of Santa Maria Novella. The intervention had to be reversible—and thus provisional. Working with bursts of color, immersive lighting effects, and exquisitely crafted materials, Avatar connects with the original architect across the centuries while creating a sensitive environment for the works on display and the curatorial program.