Redevelopment of the disused Chimney inside Mincio park – Ideas Contest: 2nd prize

The project proposal responds to the Company’s request to transform the concrete 150-meters-high disused Chimney inside Mincio park, into a panoramic tower and museum area.

The project has two important goals:

- value the naturalistic context, through the creation of an exhibition path as an element of connection between external and internal space;

- become a landmark recognizable in its shape even from afar.

The exhibition path has a value of physical and conceptual connection between external and internal space. The physical connection is given by the exhibition itself, firstly developed on the horizontal path before the chimney entrance, and then developed vertically, along the height of the tower, with an intermediate stop outdoor. The conceptual connection is perceived through three sensory phases: Mincio park’s horizontal open space close to the chimney; the unusual vertical compression of the cylindrical volume; the horizontal expansion of the space at the top of the chimney.

The project is characterized by its unique shape: the design choice envisages the redefinition of the cylindric concrete silhouette by applying a light metal structure that, in fact, modifies the profile of the chimney. This structure starts from the bottom as an ideal continuation of the exhibition path, wraps itself along the trunk of the chimney, finding its point of greatest expansion coinciding with the intermediate stop outdoor. It continues towards the top in a progressive spindle that aims to emphasize verticality and upward dynamism. The shape also originates from the zoomorphic suggestion of the park's fauna, with a metaphorical reference to the wing profile of the Peregrine Falcon.

The integration with the natural landscape is evident in the conceptual choices as much as in the formal and chromatic ones. The organic shape and the natural colors, indeed, recall the verticality, the sinuosity and the colors of the surrounding tree species.

https://www.a2a.eu/it/gruppo/termoelettrici/centrale-ponti-mincio/conco…