The Piccolo Teatro Strehler di Milano

In 2017, the Piccolo Teatro di Milano (Little Theatre in Milan) celebrated its seventieth anniversary with a new architectural lighting design for its venue in Largo Greppi. This building creates an important link between the urban social fabric of the Brera district and the city’s expansion around the Foro Bonaparte during the nineteenth century. The building was designed by Marco Zanuso, work began in 1977 and the theatre was completed in 1996.

The new lighting system was donated by the CastagnaRavelli studio who designed the project and iGuzzini who supplied the luminaires.

iGuzzini agreed to take part in this project because the company enjoys a long-standing relationship with the Piccolo Teatro. In fact, in 2004, when the Teatro Persiani in Recanati was reopened after a lengthy closure, the Piccolo Teatro di Milano was asked to take creative control of it. The new lighting system designed by Paolo Castagna and Gianni Ravelli illuminates the entire building, emphasizing its layered architecture and wide range of materials, whereas before, it was constantly sunk in shadow.

The main entrance area is lit by two bands of warm light created by 3000 K colour temperature iPro projectors (BX23) fitted with a Flood optic. The whole façade, on the other hand, is lit by Linealuce Mini and Platea Pro LED line systems (positioned respectively on the first and third floors) that enhance the texture of its brick surfaces with a grazing Warm White light effect (3000 K). The homogeneous grazing light on the side walls also effectively highlights the advertising banners that were difficult to read with the previous lighting system. To highlight the difference between the warm colour of the brick walls and the cold tones of the copper roofing, Platea Pro and iPro projectors with a cold tone of 4000 K light have been positioned on the second and fourth floors. The homogeneous and grazing lighting on the walls can also be completely switched off, while the Underscore In Out light lines positioned along the building’s corners are kept on to create an attractive quasi-silhouette effect. Last of all, Arnaldo Pomodoro’s bronze sculpture, the Torre a Spirale or Spiral Tower that stands in the Largo Greppi street area has been lit using micro iPro projectors. Thanks to the use of LED luminaires and high efficiency optics, this new project has the further advantage, too, of generating energy savings of over 60% compared to the previous system.