Città Nuova
Alessandria
Alessandria“Cittá Nuova” (architectural project Prof. Léon Krier and Eng. Gabriele Tagliaventi) is the name given to the project to regenerate the area in the heart of the Pista district, once occupied by the workshops of OLVA, a historic company in Alessandria.
An integrated urban neighborhood has been built here according to the tradition of the historic Piedmontese city, with the creation of a system of open spaces treated as arcaded squares. While the buildings are characterized by a clear correspondence to the architectural typology of the traditional city – the “Renaissance palace” with the courtyard passing through to the inner garden, the courtyard house, and the urban villa – the complex was equipped with technologically advanced facilities.
The project was entrusted to Luxembourg architect Léon Krier, personal advisor to Prince Charles of England and a leading exponent of the “Urban Renaissance” movement, an international school that has been active for years in responsible urban planning, human-scale development and the pursuit of quality in construction, for the rebirth of the city. The project, the first Italian example, is the result of a thorough analysis and reinterpretation of the city’s territory, taken as a living subject of planning and design.
In this sense, the insertion of commercial and tertiary activities within a pole with a strong residential vocation allows to rethink the human, geographic-environmental, exchange and consumption connections of the city, taking into account that the axis of urban expansion – present and future – is in a southerly direction.
In this way, the redevelopment project intends to achieve a twofold result: to boost activities in the “Pista” neighborhood which has now become peripheral, by reviving relations with the city’s productive dynamics and enhancing the important historical identity of this area. Further aim of the operation is to initiate in Alessandria as well that movement of decentralization of public offices and private activities from the now congested historic centers, thus creating a living and harmonious urban fabric. The characteristic elements of the new district are open spaces treated as porticoed squares in such a way as to reintroduce one of the fundamental features of the urban landscape of the historic city and of Piedmontese urban planning; the use of architectural elements inferred from the study of the city’s traditional typologies in such a way as to ensure the maintenance of a strong environmental identity and to avoid the sense of alienation of so many modern suburbs built according to patterns and models of an abstract internationalism devoid of reference to local historical and cultural reality; the creation of a complex of mixed-use buildings in which the residential presence is enriched by stores, workshops, professional offices, a new bank branch in such a way as to guarantee vitality to the neighborhood and trigger an urban renaissance operation. The public and private parking lots are also made homogeneous with the context of the neighborhood, and both entrances are treated as significant urban elements, with portals enriched by the use of ashlar to ensure the continuity of the urban frontage adjacent to the apartment buildings.
