The project for the rearrangement of Piazza Mostra in Trento is the final outcome of a long process of investigation and in-depth design, which began more than a decade ago through the organization of a self-initiated and collaborative research activity. Its results flowed into a self-published publication and an exhibition open to the public that aimed to raise awareness and promote the redevelopment of the square. The investigation highlighted the great historical value of a place that has remained unexpectedly marginalized and undervalued, despite constituting the public space facing one of the region’s most important monumental complexes. In 2016, the City of Trento announced a two-phase design competition for the redevelopment of the square. The goal of this call was not only to improve an underutilized public space, but rather to define a new system of physical and symbolic relations for an important place in the city, whose unresolved spatial relations have crystallized over the past decades, generating an urban area devoid of meaning and quality used as a banal parking lot. The project, which resulted winner of the competition, involves the articulation of a sequence of spaces at different heights, leading up to the entrance of the castle, with the aim of enhancing the accessibility from the urban center to the museum complex. The project is therefore characterized by the identification of a path that allows a convenient overcoming of the difference in height between the different heights, defining a single access, universally usable by all, capable of leading easily and intuitively to the museum complex through St. Martin’s gate. The curbs containing the green areas have been conceived as a continuous ribbon of stone, defined by monolithic blocks of ammonitic red marble laid on exposed pigmented concrete curbs. The square and the pedestrian path leading to Buonconsiglio Castle, has been paved in irregular porphyry elements, chosen to recall the texture of the nearby castle walls.
View Original