A greatly complex city, halfway between the European matrix of the ?plan' and the total spontaneity of the ?cerros', the first Pacific port before the opening of the Panama Canal, a place of fusion between the cultures of the new and the old continent, Valpara?so experiences the crisis of the port even today, and the adjacent Barrio Puerto represents the truest testimony: the historic district of nineteenth-century structure, mostly?abandoned and used as a site of continuous urban demolition. Redefining and re-evaluating the role of these urban voids is the aim that generates the project.?The project foresees the construction of cultural facilities, develo-ping into an urban scale path which moves from the ancient gateway to the city, the port, through its old axis of development. The port is considered as an urban part, in its connotation of empty space, called to clarify and redefine its relationships with the city that supports it, in a formal and functional sense, enhan-cing its strategic value of place of exchange.The project stands as a timely intervention which tries to mend relations that have gone missing, trying to give new life to the historic core which best represents Valpara?so's identity.

Briselda Calliku
Briselda Calliku?She graduated with a? degree in Architecture in? October 2015 at the Politecnico di? Milano, having developed a Master Thesis on Valpara?so (CHI), where she studied Architecture at the Universi-dad Técnica Federico Santa Mar?a within the? Erasmus Programme.??Her research mainly focuses on the urban transformations and problems connected to the land usage concerning developing countries.