Confirming the capacity for urban regeneration that characterizes Bergamo and Brescia, and which inspired the concept Città Illuminata (Illuminated City), the process of designing new urban spaces in the two cities has begun in view of the events for the Italian Capital of Culture in 2023.
The Municipality of Bergamo and Confindustria Bergamo, with the collaboration of GAMeC – Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo, are the promoters of the creation of two urban installations that will reconfigure the central Piazza della Libertà and the space in front of the new Confindustria Bergamo headquarters at Kilometro Rosso, in order to create an ideal bridge between the city center and its suburbs, between the historic and representative urban core and the current innovation and industry hub.
The first project is intended to dress up Piazza della Libertà with a temporary intervention that marks the visual identity of the Italian Capital of Culture, La Città Illuminata, characterizing it with a territorial landmark; the second project intends to transform the entrance to the headquarters of Confindustria Bergamo within Kilometro Rosso Innovation District with a place dedicated to the concept of Industriosa Natura (Industrious Nature) and the new identity vision that guides the Association’s operations.
The two site-specific projects are characterized by a common language that combines architecture, design, and public art. GAMeC’s collaboration fits into this context, through the identification of a shortlist of young designers to be involved for the contest launched in recent months.
For the creation at Kilometro Rosso, seven Italian creatives were selected: Ecòl, False Mirror Office, Matilde Cassani Studio, Parasite 2.0, SalottoBuono, Studio Francesco Faccin, and Studio Ossidiana.
For Piazza della Libertà, on the other hand, five international creatives have been identified, indicated by as many advisors: Agostino Iacurci, selected by Domitilla Dardi; Objects of Common Interest, selected by Federica Sala; Space Popular, selected by Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli; Marjan van Aubel, selected by Angela Rui; Teresa Van Dongen, selected by Formafantasma.
Two separate juries will choose the winning projects, which will be inaugurated in early 2023 to coincide with the opening of the celebrations for Bergamo Brescia Italian Capital of Culture.
The projects are fully supported by Confindustria Bergamo, reflecting the company’s desire to support the Bergamo community through the creation of inclusive, sustainable and harmoniously integrated meeting and social venues in the city context, which are also linked to the values of innovation and industriousness, the core of both the mission of Confindustria Bergamo and that of Bergamo Brescia Italian Capital of Culture 2023.
A thought shared by the Municipal Administration, as can be seen from the statement of Bergamo Mayor Giorgio Gori, who emphasizes, “The two projects – temporary the one in Piazza della Libertà, destined to have a different location at the end of 2023, final instead the one at Kilometro Rosso – will be integrated into the city. The creative action will not only reread the territory from the center to the suburbs, but will also fit into the entrepreneurial fabric that animates Bergamo’s identity. The two projects will also be inclusive, open to a heterogeneous public, consistent with the connection between the business world and the community, and above all sustainable, clearly expressing the direction that the Italian Capital of Culture 2023 is following in every area of innovation and design.”
“In the indications provided to the designers, special attention was paid to the concepts of innovation and industriousness,” continues Giovanna Ricuperati, President of Confindustria Bergamo, “which represent the founding values in the design of the Association’s new headquarters built at the Kilometro Rosso Innovation District. It is the vision of “Industrious Nature,” which inspires an important change, that for a further approach and opening to the territory in which business culture dialogues with other actors, promoting the search for a balance among innovation, social and environmental responsibility.”
“The two installations,” closes Lorenzo Giusti, Director of GAMeC, “represent for the museum a further opportunity for relationship and dialogue with the city, through the language of design and architecture. The field of interaction between these disciplines and visual art today constitutes an important space of interconnection between knowledge and codes of the contemporary world, in which to experiment with applied creative thinking.”