Progetto per la decorazione interna della Parrocchia di S. Romano, Milano, 1989-90

As part of the architecture competition for the new Church of San Romano in the Gallaratese district in Milan, the Derossi Associati firm of Turin invited Paolini to collaborate on the interior decoration. The project earned second prize and so was never realized.1
Paolini’s contribution consists of a compact grid of 1989 gilded frames in the upper part of the walls, arranged in a regular pattern. Inside this continuous flow, fourteen frames are more isolated with respect to the whole, representing, with their number, the stations of the Via Crucis. Lower down, at the viewer’s eye level, four single frames hold a pencil drawing, some of which continues onto the wall, evoking the vestments of the Virgin and of a Saint, that is, the shadow of “weightless bodies.”2 Above the altar, the artist instead imagined a semicircular canvas bearing the image of the cross made in black and red ink, with a symbolic hole in the middle. To the right of the canvas, the outlined life-size figure inspired by the iconography of Saint Romanus pays homage to the patron saint of the church.

1 The project is part of the Concorso Nazionale Tre Chiese for 2000, held by the Comitato Nuove Chiese of the Milan Diocese. Cf. the documentation for the competition project at the Derossi Associati website, http://www.derossiassociati.it/progetti-posts/concorso-per-una-chiesa-al-gallaratese-milano/
2 G. Paolini in the typescript document with a description of the project held in the artist’s archive.