The ancient streets of Florence present perfect opportunities for hiding a groundbreaking and highly automated facility for the modification of information fed to the public. The purpose of the Istituto Veritas is to erase the concept of fake news, misinformation, and propaganda from the minds of the susceptible public by constantly monitoring, editing, and storing, all of the information released for widespread circulation. This centre for truth, ran by the Italian government in conjucture with the main and ‘objective’ news outlet of the country, will aim for total absolution from the growing culture of total disregard of what is the truth and what baltantly is not. But could a Ministry set up by the government and funded by newspapers ever, truly reach the abstract concept of objectivity? The location of the building using an ancient disused gasometer and its location in the historic centre of the city seem to suggest openness, willingness to be as transparent as possible. But as with the bulk of the building hidden beneath the streets, some of the operations within it are meant to be kept out of the public eye.
The final images above show a building with two facets: a light and airy one, destined for the benefit of the public and used as a means to show openness and trasparency, and a darker one, the underground realm where the infromation fed to the public is edited to waht the Institute believes is truthful. The aim of either space is to show the grandeur and the power of the truth - a cathedral to honesty, demonising misinformation and lies.
This project, beyond representing a design effort, also required the exploration of more technical aspects of the process. This came under the form of a complete report of building methods, looking at construction detail for the buidlings as well as procurement and contractual details of a prospective building of this size and nature. Many of such details attempted to be as close to a real report as possible, and a mix between Italian and English regulations were used in order to be as truthful to the process as possible.
CONSTRUCTION DETAIL
CONTRACT AND PROCUREMENT
