BACK HOMEPAGE ARCHITECTURE PAINTING PHILOSOPHY FOUNDATION

B.1.4.5
FLORENTIA
THE DAWNING CITY
by
VITTORIO MAZZUCCONI		 The new Town Model (2/2)
 
Florence 1970 - 85
 
Project for the new Centre of Florence

Between the building that are shown on the model , the only ones that belong to today's Florence are:
the Duomo, the Baptistery, the Strozzi Palace, Orsan-michele.
These assume the leading role of all the area, and thus are of primary importance in the project, too. The new buildings, however, must not be valued less for it. Having reacquired the original chequered layout of the Etruscan-Roman streets, (in particular by means of the Carduus and the Decumanus that meet perpendicularly), it is now possible for an extraordinary building to rise around the crossing: a Congress Centre with a series of underground auditoriums, whose roofing forms a sort of over-elevated square, slightly unpotted like the Campo of Siena, which was devised in order for the young of all the world to reunite….
It is like an immense Flower. Seen from above, it almost appears to be the very Dome that towers beside it, thought out in a new and different dimension: blossomed!

   This building is a sort of cradle, or an enormous Arch, an idea whose origins, in Mazzucconi's poetry, are very distant: an arch that acts like the bearer of many treasures of civilisation, as can be seen in the prospective where, towering over the Arch, OrsanMichele, Santa Croce, the Bargello, the Bell-tower of the Badia... are the sweet hills that surround Florence. Near the Flower there is the ancient, rediscovered Forum, along with the podium of the Capitoline Temple, the new Museum of Etruria, the City Hall., and the New Uffizi

The remaining buildings, too, belong to the International Art University Campus area brought forward by the Florence project. Those structures that may be seen in front view, in the photograph, have no monumental intentions, though they have been designed to re-weave the ancient building layout of the city (destroyed by the interventions of Eighteen-Hundred), in a natural continuity with the rest of this part of the city. Even the medieval layout of the streets has been utilised once again. Their level is the same that may be seen today, whereas the nearby archaeological site is roughly 3.5 m below. From this site, then, it is possible to ascend to the medieval quarter which will give the impression of a smal Citadel, and which the project reserves for the students, with all its service centres and receptions.