GOTICA64
A new urban space for the municipality of Vergato
The Gotica64 project was born thanks to the opportunity presented by the ‘Bando Rigenerazione Urbana 2021’ (Urban Regeneration 2021 Call for Proposals) promoted by the Emilia-Romagna Region to encourage the activation of urban regeneration processes in small and medium-sized municipalities. The project thus aims to recover the Ex-Fornaci warehouse and create a new public space in the external area near the building, to provide new social and cultural spaces for the community and to take the first step towards a broader urban regeneration process, including the Park in front of the Ex-Fornaci mouths.
The area under intervention is nowadays a heterogeneous group of fragments, both historical and more recently built, which are characterized by a poor functional and architectural relationship. The result is a degraded image of the area, with chaotic parking along the asphalted road, a disorderly division between the area of the rest home and the area pertaining to the other buildings, and a complete abandonment of the Ex-Fornaci complex.
The programmatic intent is to create a new museum center, with social and cultural areas, that frames the history of the Gothic Line and at the same time offers a place of ‘contamination’ between narrated events and recreational moments, in order to attract young and old in this meeting space.
The portion of the building, consisting of a single volume entirely vaulted, will be recovered and set up as a meeting space for young people. Inside, an X-LAM wooden structure will be built, which above will welcome visitors for projections and small conferences, while below it will house toilets. This is intended to insert a coherent, distinguishable, and reversible element into the historic architecture. The other portion of the building, recovered in recent times, will instead be fitted out to house the Gothic Line Museum. In synergy with the interior space, the new public square will be developed, no longer conceived as a static place, but as a dynamic place of passage and exchange. From this hypothesis comes the form of the square, not as an element enclosed within its boundaries, but as an element that extends towards the historic monument above.
Architectural concrete was chosen for the paving, used in warm-cold bi-color up to the access level of the youth recreation area. From this level, alternating, flat strips with a constant slope of approximately 30° will be created by digging into the ground, so as to form an ascending element towards the future Fornaci Park with minimal impact on the existing natural environment. A segmented path is then inserted that digs into the ground like a trench and winds its way up to the first mouth of the historic Fornaci building. Along the route, the stone wall and its four openings will be partially restored, thus accompanying the ascent with a “romantic” poetic.
