SFMG - european photography center | NAT Office

the former hotel cairoli, placed in xxv aprile square and donated to the reggio emilia city council by mrs anna maria ternelli gerra with the purpose to create a new cultural place for the city dedicated to her husband, the artist  marco gerra (1925–2000), id going to become a new space for photography and contemporary arts.

xxv aprile square and the new cultural centre, being complementary, regenerate each other in a space-time dialectic between empty and full, background and scene, transparency and opacity, stand and movement: they are brought back to life as dynamic elements that transform with their relationship the empty space of the square in a “full” as meeting place, route, crossing and resting.

a dynamic architectural theme thus redefines the identity of the area, creating new urban connections within the historical town, as a set of cultural spaces available and perceptible in continuum.

inside, the corner staircase links the ground-floor entrance hall to the bookshop and the reading room; on the first floor there is a multi-purpose room for conferences, showings, exhibitions, with an open-air cafeteria and a didactic-atelier photographic workshop with a balcony. on the second floor there is space for temporary exhibitions with a multimedia meeting room and, on the third floor, temporary exhibition space and the offices of the centre.