There are few car companies as inspiring as Ferrari - they've set the standard for Automotive Engineering and Design for the past 80 years and continually break those rules time and time again. Last May, the new Enzo Ferrari Museum opened in Modena, Italy, right outside his birthplace, his father's rail-carriage workshop, complete with exhibits of every single car produced by Ferrari and contemporaries. Rarely does one see an exterior form of a building that so perfectly compliments the attractions within, the sort of crossover from Automotive to Architecture that deserves a little writeup for the blog.
Enzo Ferrari is probably one of the most intense and driven men of Automotive history. With little formal education, he spent his early years in the 1920s and 30s racing with Alfa Romeo and eventually leading their entire motor-racing club. There he practiced his intense style of management, pushing drivers and engineers to do the impossible, earning prizes as well as criticism. By 1947 Ferrari was making his own cars under his own name, bringing in the greatest designers, engineers and racers. The rest, they say is history.
The Ferrari tradition was evident here. Conceived by the late Jan Kaplicky (d. 2009) and completed by Andrea Morgante of Shiro Studios. The entire structure is made entirely from aluminum - the largest example of the use of aluminum as a construction material. The inlets within the ceiling allow light and air to flow freely while being suggestive of a car bonnet. Each piece of the 3,300 square meter, double-curved aluminum dome was locked together with a patented tongue and groove method. To manage such an undertaking, Morgante and Kaplicky had to collaborate with the most unlikely groups - boat designers, mostly on the basis of their familiarity with organic structures and waterproofing according to Dezeen. It goes to show: when you collaborate with people outside your field, you can accomplish some amazing things.
There is nary a straight line - the entire building stays low to the ground like any speedster, reducing as much drag as possible. There is as little ecological drag as well - all the water is recycled, geothermal energy provides the heat and photovoltaics power the lighting. The glass façade is tilted by 12.5 degrees to allow more light in, requiring pre-tensioned steel cables to support each pane of glass, designed to withstand up to 40 tons of pressure.
If you live in the area, or are visiting, swing into Modena and check it out - the pictures don't seem to do justice to the building or the cars. If you can't, here's the next best thing: a CAD model of a 2011 Ferrari Enzo by GrabCAD Engineer Robert Futch.
