Started as a family business in Parma in 1877, Barilla continues to be organized as a family business despite the fact that it has become a global brand. It brings together the philosophy of the local and the traditional quality while learning and innovating at a global scale.

The future Barilla Pavilion will be precisely the synthesis of these two scales – the old and the new. It will reinvent the original values, hierarchies of scale and functions as an efficient mechanism with a global span.

The new Barilla Pavilion will be the symbol of the culture of the global that speaks about plurality rather than of homogeneity, a worldwide vision: engaged with the advance of ideas and of technology, but also with the understanding of the local and the traditional. It will be a place that allows the differences while understanding that everything is interlinked: not only a space for communication but above all for interaction.

Its implantation in the production space allows another transformation: the possibility to establish a synergy between the creation, production and consumption facilities. Our proposal favors this dynamic of interaction and exchange; it values the Barilla know how while providing a new rapport to the landscape and the traditional.

The architectural volume is simple and draws its inspiration from the site: 15 cylindrical modules of 20m diameter reinterpret the industrial facilities present on site and offer a free ground floor that opens towards the landscape. It is a reminder that moving to the next scale in terms of size is not how integration is achieved. The local is in direct dialogue with the global, which is itself constituted of a multiplicity of locals.

The modular concept allows the complete independence of the functional entities while a central open space encourages the interaction between them. It’s a process of decomposition and re-composition, an opportunity to build a singular space at the crossing of multiple types of knowledge.