gotica 64 - mountain youth center

The project titled 'Gotica64' represents an opportunity to highlight the events of the first half of the 20th century, while creating a dialogue between memory and social infrastructure. The site will host a museum dedicated to the Gothic Line, an indoor youth center and a revitalized public space for the community.
Outside, the existing fragmented landscape, a disjointed mix of historical warehouses and utilitarian constructions from the 1970s, gives way to a unified vision. The project reshapes this urban void, reconnecting it to the historical fabric of Vergato’s lime kilns while offering new spaces for interaction.

The intervention focuses on the former Fornaci warehouse, a linear vaulted space with stone walls. Inside the proposal aims to create a cultural center that weaves together history and social life. The project envisions a south-facing portion of the warehouse as a dynamic meeting space for younger generations, while the vaulted interior will integrate an X-LAM structure housing restrooms and storage. The roof of this structure, with its stepped shape, becomes an informal auditorium for screenings and lectures. These interventions, designed with coherence and reversibility, respect the existing architecture while introducing elements that invite use and engagement.

Outside, a new public square acts as a threshold, a place of transition and interaction that blends the past and present. The design of the square extends its gesture upward toward the historic monument, inviting visitors to rediscover the lime kilns, long concealed by vegetation and outdated structures. The removal of these intrusive elements paves the way for a raised plaza, reconnecting the site visually and physically to its heritage. Architectural concrete, with warm and cool tones, unifies the new paving, while excavations in the ground articulate a path leading to the historic monument surrounded by greenerys.

At the urban scale, the project proposes a broader strategy of regeneration that balances preservation and transformation. The lush vegetation is retained and reimagined as part of a new urban park for the town center. A pathway, cutting into the terrain like a trench, guides visitors toward the kilns, revealing their monumental presence. Along this route, stone walls and their historic openings are partially restored, their texture and rhythm framing a journey that blends the poetic and the historical. ▼read more