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| Corduroy
Urbanism and Urban Bastards |
9.1999
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| international competition organized by the Urban Studies and Architecture Institute of New York for the transformation of the Magazzini Generali area in Verona, Italy | |
The site is pivotal in the maturing of Verona into a larger metropolis. The city became bifurcated as it grew beyond its urban core and beyond its industrial zone. The industrial zone assumed the function once occupied by the fortifying walls – that of separation. Segregated satellite neighborhoods like Borgo Roma and Golosine-S.Lucia became urban bastards. The industrial area at the periphery, once the workplace of most of these residents, steadily moved out of town. The problem as we saw it became: "how does a city reconnect and become a continuum of the metropolis while participating in and feeding off of the complexity of the city?" Using the strategy of corduroy urbanism we found that, through reprogramming existing structures and inserting new construction, we could link isolated struggling types to similar thriving urban types. The Magazzini Generali is situated at the apex of several different urban types. Facilitating the connections of similar urban uses creates cords of certain typologies, such as residential, civic, commercial, park space and Fair. Now the city can be seen as a continuum of particular types and can also be experienced as such. The complexity and richness of the metropolitan condition is indulged at the intersections, overlappings, and adjacencies of the cords. Viale del Lavoro, the necessary umbilical of the city, is submerged between the existing Fair and the Magazzini Generali. Traffic can move at an efficient pace while not being hazardous to pedestrians. Autos can emerge into the specific metropolitan area they choose. A parking garage for twenty thousand vehicles intercepts autos directly off the Viale. Above ground, the prior location of the Viale gets developed as an urban promenade, a place where all the types of the city are catalogued. Project exhibited at the 5th International Festival of Architecture in Video, November 30–December 17, 2000, Firenze, Prato and Pistoia, Italy; published in the Catalogue of the 5th International Festival of Architecture in Video, 2000; published on "Arch'it" (www.architettura.it) in February 2001; presented in the Voyage dans la condition urbaine exhibit, Pavillon de l'Arsenal, Paris in January-February 2003. |
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