Coming back from tragedy in Genoa
Milan-based Stefano Boeri Architetti have designed the winning proposal for Genoa’s comeback from the 2018 Morandi Bridge tragedy.
The collapse in the Italian city in August 2018 killed 43 people and left another 600 people homeless.
Built below Renzo Piano’s replacement for the collapsed bridge, “The Polcevera Park and The Red Circle” are a system of parks with different ecologies and infrastructures that will feature a variety of plants and trees typical of the Mediterranean basin.
The Polcevera Park and The Red Circle are part of Genoa’s comeback after the 2018 Morandi Bridge collapse.
“The Parco del Polcevera will become a new centre,” says the architecture studio. “All around it, the district will be reborn, understood as a community of life, relationships and exchanges.”
The Red Steel Circle will symbolically sew the two sides of the valley together, becoming a walkway, raised square, access and exit ramp, underground path, and corridor between buildings. This path of connection will highlight Polcevera Park, serving as a 1570-metre bike and pedestrian road, six-metres wide and 250-metres in radius.
The system of parks will contain different ecologies and will feature a variety of plants and trees typical of the Mediterranean basin.
The Circle will be part of a sustainable mobility grid, a strategy developed with mobility in chain (MIC). A 120-metre wind tower for the production and distribution of renewable energy will feature, and bike and pedestrian paths, smart mobility lanes, shared surfaces, and intelligent parking spaces will all be brought together.
Parco del Polcevera’s landscape consists of parallel stripes, with varying widths of seven to 20 metres, that align with the path and each have a different type of garden, providing biodiversity. The Red Circle will connect and intersect all the stripes, creating connections that were previously impossible, and making it an easy space to navigate for pedestrians and cyclists.
The collapse in August 2018 killed 43 people and left another 600 people homeless.
Stefano Boeri Architetti want to reverse the current image of Polcevera Valley, “from a complex and tragically devastated place to a territory of sustainable innovation for the rejuvenation of Genoa itself.”
Surrounding buildings will be made with sustainable materials, and have large roofs to accommodate surface area for renewable energy production. These buildings will open up to the park and be intersected and connected by the Red Circle.
An art installation by Luca Vitone featuring 43 trees, named “Genova in the Wood”, will be erected in memory of the victims of the Morandi Bridge collapse. Stefano Boeri Architetti describe it as, “the timeless memory of the pain and faults of mankind but, at the same time, a symbol for the indomitable strength of a city.”
Stefano Boeri says the project is, “Genoa's welcome to the passers-by of the future. A welcome to the world that crosses it and reaches Genoa from a network of infrastructure that stretches from east to west connecting Italy to Europe, parks perched on vertical walls, workers and noblewomen, singers-poets and naval engineers. A Superb City, even though it is afflicted by poignant melancholy; beautiful, even if in the harshness of its everlasting contradictions. A city of steel and sea, sculpted by wind and tragedy, but always able to stand tall.”
