How to create a forest
Culture is a constantly evolving process, not a fixed point; it is a fruitful organism that forms and transforms, not a pure mechanism. Out of this clear and essential vision was born LAC Lugano Art and Culture, a project of great scope, not only because of the remarkable scale of its architecture, but because of the rich complexity of the program it set out to realize and develop. To give life to an ecosystem. That is, to offer the territory a context in which art and culture, in all their expressions, could enter into relationship and intersect, contributing, each in a different and necessary way, to a work of co-creation, to the telling and interpretation of the present through the participation of the community, local and international.
Basically a symphonic work, a wide-ranging social process. Which begins with the 2,500 square meters dedicated to the exhibits of the Art Museum of Italian Switzerland, with major exhibitions of modern and contemporary artists that are deciphered by accompanying the masters of the past. And by its side, it continues in the nearly 1,000-seat concert hall and theater, a jewel of acoustic engineering, where LAC's permanent partners, Compagnia Finzi Pasca and theOrchestra of Italian Switzerland (OSI), perform, and where Lugano Musica enthusiasts keep watch for months for tickets for dates with the most prestigious names in the concert world. But, above all, a stage for the season coordinated by the LAC artistic direction, with the extraordinary opportunity to build a playbill closely connected to the Center's objectives: dance, prose and music performances, with attention to the great classics, but also to innovative forms; collaborations with important international companies, but also the production of new works to give space to local talent and, through European tours, expand the boundaries and continue to increase the ecosystem. Because like any organism, LAC must be nurtured and sustained.
The interesting and vast proposal of multidisciplinary activities offered to the public, often free of charge, by the LAC edu program responds precisely to this goal, caring for the needs of its present community and preparing the resources of the future. All of this makes LAC unique in the panorama of international cultural centers, and one million visitors in its first four years of existence, many of whom come from beyond regional and national borders, have been the most powerful confirmation of the value of the investment desired by the city of Lugano: to focus on the quality of its cultural offerings in order to become a reference point and an attraction for the general public.
