Museum video projections, the multimedia museum Casa Marcegaglia

Projectors for museums, the story of Casa Marcegaglia

Located in Gazoldo degli Ippoliti near Mantova, 'Casa Marcegaglia' is a multimedial museum created to express the identity and values of the Marcegaglia Group, a giant in the steel industry with 25 plants worldwide, on its 60th birthday. Thanks to the use of video projection by Epson and other solutions such as totems, monitors and touch tables, the digital museum Casa Marcegaglia offers an engaging and interactive experience, highlighting the meticulous creative and technical work. The implementation of the project required the commitment and professionalism of various actors, including the internal team of Marcegaglia, the IT Service Provider ACS Data Systems with its own brand INFINITYS and Studio Chiesa for the artistic design.
'Casa Marcegaglia' intends to be a space capable of conveying the history and identity of the company in a way accessible to everyone, from suppliers to students. In order to adequately recount the fascinating process of steel processing, the installation of immersive audio-video multimedia equipment was necessary, as well as the participation of artists in creating suitable content.
Inaugurated on May 6, 'Casa Marcegaglia' received the attention of prominent figures in Italian entrepreneurship and institutions. The Marcegaglia family, in celebrating the opening of the museum, emphasized the importance of the connection with the territory of Mantova and the exceptional contribution of the founder, Steno Marcegaglia. The museum is not only a memory of a great entrepreneurial success, but also a tribute to the people who contributed to creating the Marcegaglia reality and an example of the culture of the relationship with the territory.

The touch points of Casa Marcegaglia

To be as faithful as possible to the concepts of immersivity and interactivity, the journey includes some key points, called La Forma dell'acciaio, Teatro, Dentro la materia, Steno and La Storia.

La Forma dell'acciaio is one of the most remarkable spaces of the House, a multifunctional environment that provides a 360-degree projection on all sides of the room, thanks to 9 Epson EB-L1075U projectors working in edge blending. They are also smart projectors, capable of detecting visitor movements and changing the projection based on the user's interest.

Joined to the adjacent Teatro this space can be transformed into a large conference room through a sliding wall. In the event of events or conferences, two additional EB-L1075U projectors are activated to ensure optimal visibility to all the public. When the Teatro is used separately, it offers a 3 and a half minute animation that illustrates what steel is and provides introductory information on its processing.

Dentro la Materia is a tunnel where 3 projectors have been installed in edge blending that project on a surface of 10 meters by 3. Here, images related to the fusion of matter, its transformation into worked steel and finally into 'finished' objects are represented.

The Steno room is probably the most emotional area of the journey. The artists indeed used a 60s audio of Steno Marcegaglia and shots of his office to create suitable content for continuous immersive projection on 3 walls.

Finally, La Storia is an area that recounts the evolutionary phases of the company. This area is particularly interesting from the projection point of view, as a "wow" effect was created through the use of two EB-L1075U projectors, where at first glance there seem to exist physical frames, which when changing colour are revealed to the visitor as projected images.

All these solutions were based on the ANIMA platform of INFINITYS for content management, combined with technology control with Extron solutions and Bose audio systems that give great sound quality to all environments.

The challenges: size of spaces, aesthetic aspects and integration

The installation involved numerous technicians and specialists from INFINITYS and lasted several months, mainly due to a series of difficulties and challenges faced during the design and implementation of the project:

• the allocation of AVC technologies in relatively restricted spaces (large projections in frequently narrow environments) and in some cases multi-purpose
• the integration of technologies into an architectural project that necessarily had to respect a clean aesthetic, in which the solutions had to fit in a fluid and harmonious way. Everything was made even more complex by the pre-existing systems in which the AVC solutions had to be inserted
• it was essential to ensure the total integration of the audiovisual systems installed by ACS with the other operating systems within the building (air conditioning, lights, shutter automation, etc.), in order to provide the customer with a single management point

For the realization of the project, the strong spirit of collaboration between all the parties involved was decisive.

Article taken from the website of Sistemi Integrati.