Monte Isola will have a museum dedicated to Christo's "The Floating Piers." Ok from MiBACT

With the allocation of 2 million euros approved last week by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism as part of the strategic plan “Grandi Progetti Beni Culturali,” the Cà del Dutùr in Menzino di Monte Isola (Brescia), on Lake Iseo, finds its destination. It is a 17th-century building, Palazzo Zirotti, named after the family that inhabited it and donated it to the Municipality of Monte Isola in 1922 to make it the residence of the first stationary doctor in the lake village (hence the name by which the building is known today). The building remained a private residence until the 1980s, after which it was abandoned.

With resources provided by MiBACT, now the Cà del Dutùr is preparing to become a cultural and exhibition center: in particular, the transformation of one of its floors into a museum dedicated to The Floating Piers, the Land Art intervention that Christo carried out in 2016 on Lake Iseo, when he installed his large orange footbridges that connected the village of Sulzano, on the Brescia side of the lake, to the hamlet of Peschiera Maraglio on Monte Isola and the islet of San Paolo, is making news.

As for the rest, what exactly it will contain was explained by Monte Isola Mayor Fiorello Turla in a lengthy post on his Facebook profile. On the second floor, the first citizen points out, there will be a “multipurpose center capable of hosting moments of aggregation for young and old and for all needs.” The second floor “will become the central element of an operation of cultural protagonism to be a venue for musical and theatrical performances by our young people, exhibitions, conferences, training courses; a point of reference not only local with the consequent relocation of the municipal library.” Finally, the third floor " will host a permanent exhibition with multimedia supports, dedicated to the extraordinary event The Floating Piers, the installation of the Bulgarian artist Christo who, in 2016, united with a dahlia-colored walkway the mainland to Monte Isola, and a space dedicated to the millenary culture of the network, to revive the stones of the past, a collective heritage, to give them as a legacy to the future."

“My predecessor mayor,” Turla said, "had attempted its sale, instead as my first official act, I immediately have the for-sale sign taken down and together with my administrators we start the process of finding resources for the recovery of the property, knowing that the amount of the intervention is very high and that alone we could never make it. The next step comes during the pre-inauguration stages of Christo’s world event, The Floating Piers, where I had the opportunity to get acquainted with then-Minister Dario Franceschini, who at the time had the same department as today. My worry in the following years has always been the same, finding resources!"

However, there are also criticisms of the project. In particular, Legambiente Basso Sebino rejects the initiative, saying that “it does not seem to be a good way to spend the public resources that the ECB lends us.” According to the environmental association, “the recovery of the structure could instead be used for a research center for the reclamation of Lake Iseo,” which according to the Basso Sebino section of Legambiente is a “priority” for the lake.

Pictured: the project The Floating Piers. Ph. Credit Wolfgang Volz

Monte Isola will have a museum dedicated to Christo's "The Floating Piers." Ok from MiBACT

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