The skin

La Scala is a place in which many a story and adventure has taken place. It has needed to don many costumes and take on a several new looks. This theatre is a project on the subject of skin - the organ of the human body that reflects life and the passage of time. All kinds of skin exist: blemished skins, wrinkled skins, white skins, black skins, mistreated skins that have been tattooed and pierced. Skin is the envelope of our body and it is around this idea of the body that we decided to envelop La Scala.

The facade sucks the outside towards the inside, like a blood vessel, showing sinuous forms like those in the human body. From the outside, passers-by observe an intriguing and mysterious form.

Continuing from this, the reception space is like a multitude of vessels, with the significant organs of the ticket office and cloakroom. A blood vessel is made up of several layers (internal tissue, smooth muscle, external tissue). Organic forms are created with curved walls, and leather curtains like swathes of skin framing the space, which can be moved to reconfigure the space for exhibitions, for example.

Fifth year students in Interior Architecture and Design at LISAA Paris worked on the renovation project of the Parisian cafe-theatre La Scala. In collaboration with the show producer Frédéric Biessy, director of La Scala, students created a global design project, covering visual identity right up to furniture design.