Ticino Port + Culture Center Ticino Switzerland
Riva San Vitale
A Tectonic and Cultural Gateway As a typology, the port is typically a utilitarian point of (dis)embarkation -- a mechanism for transition. However, the port acts as both a physical and psychological threshold for the city. Therefore, in this project, the port is imagined as both a tectonic and cultural gateway to the city. As a former Roman colony and medieval village of the Lombardy,
Riva San Vitale’s urban fabric is a chaotic mesh of historical anachronisms. The city grew organically, with great density, giving an extensive range of urban forms both public and private. A structure which attempts to regulate or compete against this complexity would be unsuccessful; rather the goal is to reinterpret the ur-
ban chaos with a form which achieves both complexity and simplicity. Sensual curves counter the irregular geometries of the
city center, while plasticity in the form allows one simple surface to articulate and accomplish a complex array of tasks.
The site is located in a small bay, walled from the lake, and overtaken by parking lots, a bisecting road and disused boats. The urban ges-
ture of this project is to reconnect people with the water and establish a new piazza which orients and informs the viewer about the city.
A form which reaches, welcomes, is essential. A geometry which has memory of nature, of water, of mountains, generated the undulating forms of this structure.
Simple geometry generated this elegant concrete form. Swiss Engineer Heinz Isler (1968)
Here, the concrete shells are parametrically modelled giving both unhindered fluidity and geometric precision to the form. This expressive form honors the great tradition of Swiss concrete craftsmen while modernizing it for the 21st century.