Appeal for the requalification of Verdi plaza, La Spezia OPEN LETTER I have been President of the jury of the contest for the requalification of Giuseppe Verdi Plaza in La Spezia, Italy. I have believed indeed in this clean contest. An intelligent, valid, honest and actual contest, to renew a plaza victim of the traffic and in total decay. We have given a first deserved prize, a result of rare aesthetical and urban quality. A new icon, a possible boast for the city of La Spezia. Instead no. I now see all put again in discussion. The Superintendence retracts his own assent, the Minister develops an incorrect interference; Vittorio Sgarbi shoots hysterical, approximate and wrong gusts on a theme that is unknown to him. And then small groups of backdated citizens instigated to deny a long, meticulous and very thoughtful job. Compliments to everybody. But what sadness. Or, better, what bleakness. Alessandro Mendini Architetto THE FACTS - July 2009: The Town Council of La Spezia, within the European financing POR-FESR 20082013, in collaboration with the P.A.A.L.M.A. Prize (Artist-Architect Award La Marrana Environmental Art) announces a " urban design competition, to be developed in two degrees, for the architectural and artistic requalification of Giuseppe Verdi Plaza, La Spezia." Founding theme of the project is the integration of the visions of architect and artist. - February 2010: among the 89 projects participants, the winner is that of Daniel Buren and of the architects Giannantonio Vannetti (group leader), Christian Baglioni, Elena Ciappi, Claudio Dini, Franca Cecilia Franchi. Motivation of the jury (President of the Committee, architect Alessandro Mendini): "The project is built on a really strong integration between the job of the artist and that of the architect. This integration among the two creative methods -the fundamental presupposition of this contest- succeeded very well. The proposed spatial system, underlined by the artistic intervention, expresses an attention to all the urban appeals and the various geometries that join the two parts of the city. The urban axis are studied and resolved with plenty of attention. The stereometric game, of classical character, is well integrated in the architectural history of the plaza and it also proposes a microclimate of the green and of the art that turns the site into a pleasant garden of signs and volumes. Also the proposals of polifunctionality are valid and in-depht, and open to free interpretations from the citizens. The project, besides, allows a division in phases of work, correspondent to the necessity of progressive transformation of the traffic and to possible simplifications and different executive solutions, without modifying its general conception. Particular merits of the project are the technical and technological solutions, particularly the illuminating engeneering, that guarantees a new relationship between the electric and the technique performance." - 2012: the plaza is not subject to legal bounds but the local Government equally requires the Superintendence opinion. The Superintendence gives its official authorization to the realization
of the project (prot. 33062 - 11/06/2012); The new landscaping requires the cut of 10 pines and the creation of an orange grove with 75 orange trees, saving and taking care of those existing; altogether realizing the planting of 40 new trees and 480 meters in new bloom hedges. In the historical report attached to the competition notice and in the letter of the Superintendence (prot. 10745 of the 04/15/2013) the 10 pines that form the traffic divider in the center of the plaza are declared "elements of alteration of the native architectural design which cannot be recognized in itself as having some artistic historical value" and "fictitious divider, in which the growth of the maritime pines has entirely obstructed the vision of the plaza, as well as the perception of the principal entrance of the Arsenal...” - 2013: The Municipality calls for tenders and awards the contracts - 06/10/2013: a public character, known for his oral and media intemperances, with offensive terms - and ignorant of the project - foments attacks from small dissident groups variedly directed on the political plan so much to flow in a series of disorders in the same plaza. - 06/15/2013: The Minister of Culture, Massimo Bray, with an informal tweet, asks the works suspension for the verification of the project from the Superintendence in reference to the cut of the 10 pines that could be declared elements of cultural value (having the Superintendence already given the full written authorization to cut them); - 06/17/2013: as per contracts works begin at 6.00 a.m. At 8.53 a.m. the Mayor is reached from a fax written by the Superintendence that invites him to the application of a cultural interest verification of the 10 pines. Suspension of all works. - 06/19/2013: The Minister Massimo Bray summons the Mayor of La Spezia to Rome and verbally asks a shared solution that contemplates the maintenance of the pines, even if incompatible with the project. The project in fact reopened the axial view of the plaza and created to its center - where the 10 pines are found - an open amphitheater with symbolic (the absence of a theater there demolished) and polyfunctional value. - At the actual state we are still waiting for the Superintendence written opinion, while all works are still with daily costs (€ 2.000) for all the citizens and with the risk to lose the European financings that expire 31/12/2014. Cost of the jobs of the plaza € 2.800.000. SAFETY BELT We are inviting an international convergence of thought in support of the project in Piazza Verdi: • We resist all casual political interference in legitimate democratic processes. • We oppose irresponsible media manipulation of public fear of civic innovation. • We endorse the city's effort to become better-known internationally through distinctive urban design. • We emphatically challenge the declining quality of our cultural debate. • With our voice, we are committed to elevating the level of cultural debate through orderly, democratic processes, and eloquence. • We oppose all false and ignorant representations of democratic practices and cultural values. • We defend all works and expressions that respect these practices and values.