GUCCI GROUP SHOE FACTORY | Marco Matteini

The Gucci Group shoe factory has been designed with absolute geometric precision, creating a building that looks like a cuboid with right angles silhouetted against the Pistoia countryside. With a strong horizontal emphasis, the factory’s outer coating incorporates the brown colour scheme of the Italian label’s logo. The pigmented-concrete architectural container, clad with horizontal metal panels, changes colour under different weather conditions, while the ground floor displays a long glass wall.

The interior features an unbroken sequence of volumes of different proportions but similar quadrangular shapes; the large one-floor volume of the production area counterpoints a set of functional spaces to the north, which overlook the outside landscape through the large window.

The building designed by architect Marco Matteini, winner of numerous awards and one of the main attractions at the Italian Pavilion during the 13th Biennale of Architecture in Venice, skillfully combines brand and building image, underscoring a shared vision between architecture and business: “This work represents a major success. Dealing with a business choice that aimed at standing out even through the fancifulness of the production site, meant to enhance this important business goal as well as the meticulous work of architects”.

Project: Marco Matteini / MATTEINI+ASSOCIATES*
Collaborators: Riccardo Guidi, Fabrizio Niccolai, Nazario Scelsi, Bruna Santandrea, Alberto Tosi
Project management: Marco Matteini
Photos: Alessandro Ciampi

*MATTEINI+ASSOCIATES
Matteini+Associates is an architectural studio established in 2013 by Marco Matteini.

the studio, a benchmark of the italian entrepreneurial landscape, employs a team of professionals, architects and engineers with a specific background and skills, and a network of qualified consultants capable of ensuring the highest level of quality in different project contexts.

Urban design, architectural design, restoration and interior design are the areas in which the firm operates by combining the needs of the customer with current and sensitive topics of urban inclusion and environmental sustainability.

Innovation and experimentation, efficiency and quality, ethics and sustainability are the core value of the constant research work of Matteini+Associates.

Matteini+Associates has a quality management system certification: UNI EN ISO 9001:2008 no. 46499 – 2009 – aq – ita – sincert.