International Competition
Tipology Competition // Location Turin, Italy // Timetable 2023 // Client Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo // Surface 20.000 mq // State Finalist // Project Team Balance Architettura, Archisbang, 2MIX, Bollinger&Grohmann //
The refurbishing of the Complex of the Cavallerizza
Reale returns to Turin an important portion of the Historic
Center located right in the beating heart of the city.
The density of the present traces bears witness to an
urban history which, within the walls of the Compendium,
has found an incredibly fertile scenario over the centuries:
projects, overlapping, fragments and contradictions are
welcomed and told as the true potential of a space of
complexities which can once again become the protagonist
in the life of a contemporary metropolis.
The fundamental elements of our proposal are the
reconnection of open spaces, through gates that reveal
new unexplored squares and courtyards, unexpected
shortcuts that eliminate separations and merge the
complex with the rest of the city. The concept of heritage
extends to the social sphere and allows city and memory
not to crystallize.
The city enters the Cavallerizza and the Cavallerizza opens
up to the community, an artistic and cultural pole, porous
and welcoming 24 hours a day.
The operation of creating a new civic attraction within
the walls of a historically introspective military complex
necessarily requires an important transformation.
The project punctually responds to the requests for a clear
program and introduces some new elements with the aim
of completing the scope activation framework:
1. a completely permeable zero level, made up of open
spaces, covered spaces and traversable public functions,
available to students, performers, spectators and citizens
at all hours of the day.
2. three reinterpreted entrance thresholds that invite you to
enter, penetrate, cross: the open arches of via Rossini, the
cut of via Verdi on the visual axis that looks up to Corso
Vittorio, the passage of the Royal Gardens - a rediscovered
front.
3. a horizontal impulse: the abstract grid which, built on the
ancient matrix of the ramparts, lights up and decorates,
becoming a recognizable iconic attraction.
4. a vertical impulse: a courageous viewpoint that
embodies an ancient aspiration and stands on the Rotonda
Castellamontiana to look the Mole face to face, with
admiration and without competition, though remembering
that cities and eras need their symbols.
5. an innovative, sustainable headquarter for the
authoritative Home of an authoritative Foundation, which
has been so much a leading actor, over the centuries, to
the cultural development of the City.
6. a reconversion that does not rebuild but uses the void
to welcome citizens and nature in the new urban platform
dedicated to culture.
7. a careful and delicate restoration, which preserves and
differentiates, reinterprets but does not forget, and restores
the patina of time authentically.