Login
Registered users
Today, in cities like Bergamo shifting towards tourism, scant remnants of their industrial heritage remain after decades of nearly complete demolition of production sites, erasing neighborhoods and collective memories. This project challenges this trend by embracing industrial traces and rejecting the tabula rasa approach. It diverges from conventional industrial archaeology, which freezes architecture in ruin fascination. Instead, it critically reassesses existing spaces for potential evolution and new uses. GRES Art, within a sprawling disused industrial complex, spearheads urban regeneration as the pioneering building transformed for public use, anticipating broader revitalization efforts.
Cast your vote giving a wish to this project.
The area, initially seeming peripheral to Bergamo, is actually situated along one of its historic commercial arteries, linking the walled city to the outside and shaping urban design. Historically, it marked the boundary between city and countryside, although today urban development blurs this distinction, making it more porous and less defined. At an urban scale, GRES Art is the first building transformed and returned to public use, a precursor to urban regeneration. Identified as a venue for events, artistic installations, and community gatherings, it is a hybrid space evolving over time, capable of accommodating diverse activities.
The project's first sustainable action was to intervene in the existing structure, preserving its embodied energy. The new insulation of the envelope maintains the spatial quality of the building, highlighting chiaroscuros and elegant concrete structures. A new garden (600 m2), created by subtraction, excavates part of the industrial volume to enhance natural light and create an intimate atmosphere indoors. Of the two existing volumes, one accommodates the garden through subtraction, while the other adds a new mezzanine and a long pedestrian ramp, known as the "inclined plane," ensuring an uninterrupted ascent. This spatial arrangement continually alters perceptions, offering a distinct perspective of the exhibition space from the mezzanine.
In a few decades, our cities have deliberately erased the industrial layer, removing neighborhoods, city pieces, and collective memories. Our project explores existing structures and, after careful analysis, proposes new uses: architecture influences function. We work with stratification, evolving industrial architecture into contemporary spaces. The pre-existing façade has been manipulated, with an inward excavation creating a public foyer in the plaza. Memory and nostalgia are building materials, reused industrial remnants. The golden, reflective metal façade represents the present. Inside, a 600 m2 garden was created by "subtraction," removing the roof and flooring while preserving only the structures. The public space is enriched by Mario Nanni's Solis Silos installation.
If the starting point of GRES Art 671 was a former industrial complex, its endpoint is a public space for social and cultural interaction, with an identity gradually shaped by its inhabitants and the cultural initiatives that come to life here.
De8_Architetti develops diverse projects ranging from urban design to construction details, from territorial transformation to museum exhibits. Their distinctive approach, "unspecialized architecture", ensures original responses to urban and architectural issues. They have received numerous awards nationally and internationally. Recently, the focus has been on regenerating historical and architectural heritage, both at the architectural scale (such as the New Pirelli SkyscraperBelvedere) and urban level (projects in San Pellegrino Terme, the former Gres area, and former Reggiani area in Bergamo). They are involved in the regeneration project of the UNESCO-listed Crespi d'Adda Cotton Mill since 1995 and are finalizing the redevelopment of Bergamo Stadium,exploring sports buildings' potential for urban regeneration.
