The Bergamo City Council has approved the executive design of the new Piazza Tiraboschi, included in the 2025-2027 three-year public works plan. The project, developed by the international firm C+S Architects (with offices in Treviso and London), radically redesigns the urban space around the future GAMeC headquarters, connecting it organically to the existing city fabric. Pedestrian spaces, driveways and bicycle paths, green areas and parking lots are rethought in a coherent system that integrates the city Parks (Suardi, Marenzi, Galgario), the new cultural and residential hub of the Ex Caserme Montelungo-Colleoni and the main road axes of the area (Via Battisti, Viale Muraine, Via Frizzoni, Via Suardi and Via del Galgario).
“Often museums intimidate citizens, especially teenagers. We want Gamec to become a city by attracting different social groups,” stresses Maria Alessandra Segantini, co-founder and creative director of studio C+S.
The new museum complex will rise in theformer sports hall on Via Pitentino, an elliptical structure from the 1960s. Architects Carlo Cappai and Maria Alessandra Segantini chose not to demolish the building to create the new museum inside, but to reinterpret it while preserving the structure. The retrofit project focuses on the possibility of radically transforming the building’s internal structure by demolishing the bleachers but instead keeping intact the belt of pillars that describe and characterize the building’s elliptical shape. On the outside, the building will retain its elliptical shape and will be entirely clad in sandblasted white stone, recalling the building traditions of the upper city and Piacenza architecture.
GAMeC rests on the new square: a platform also clad in white Apricena stone, at an elevation slightly raised from the street level and from the level of the adjacent parking lot, connected with a series of ramps that ensure total accessibility of the new public space. This solution was possible thanks to the rationalization project of the Piazzale Tiraboschi parking lot, which concentrates the stalls in the northern part towards Piazzale Oberdan, freeing up space for the plaza in front of the museum, a space of potential that enhances the fluidity of seamless paths within the GAMeC museum lobby and between Suardi Park, Via Pitentino and the renovated Montelungo/Colleoni.
“Often museums are a bit intimidating for citizens, especially teenagers. With this design solution we want the museum to get out of its boundaries and become a city by attracting different social groups at different times of the day and year. We transform the museum lobby into a hybrid, fluid and attractive space where even the younger generation can decide to spend their time and where different social groups can alternate in a welcoming space inside and outside the museum,” Segantini explained.
“The plaza ends with an oval seat,” Segantini said, “generating a void that translates the oval shape of the building into potentiality and that transforms behind the bench into a beautiful ’outsized planter’ that we designed with a texture of perennials that bloom according to the seasons: a soft carpet, inaccessible to humans (except for limited green maintenance operations). This inaccessible garden will be populated with greenery and small animals, emphasizing that we are not the only inhabitants of the Planet. C+S’s landscape design is designed to enhance biodiversity by integrating with existing greenery and the nearby Suardi Park. All tall trees were retained where possible and new specimens were added to complement the existing rows. The design of the greenery was articulated according to different types of vegetation, differentiated according to sun exposure, location of flower beds and specific plant growth requirements. The GAMeC urban regeneration project is a conversation between old and new within the museum and at the same time between the mineral landscape of the museum and the square and the natural landscape of the giant planter at the urban and civic scale.”
The composition is based on perennials, herbaceous and light grasses, chosen to generate movement, color play and transparency, creating a balance between volumes and textures, but also becoming possible food for animals that should populate the garden inaccessible to humans. The selected essences are self-seeding and require minimal maintenance, ensuring a sustainable life cycle and natural regeneration. With this concept comes a garden that varies from periods of maximum flowering to one that is less flowering during colder seasons, but both endowed with great aesthetic value. The organization of plants is developed according to different functional groups: ground cover for sun, ground cover for shade, tall herbaceous plants, American meadow, and accent shrubs.
The connection between the museum elevation and the adjacent streets is provided by a system of stairs, which define the edges of the plaza, as well as two pedestrian ramps with a 5% slope that allow full accessibility of the plaza and the building. A driveway ramp of 15% slope, located along the western edge of the square, also makes it accessible to service vehicles for maintenance and cleaning. The pavement is designed by water collection systems. In the southeast corner of the square is located the area in charge of museum loading-unloading, equipped with a canopy and loading bay.
Special attention has been paid to the quality of the green areas that mark the physical boundary between the driveway and vehicular parking areas and the pedestrian areas. Existing trees are maintained. A series of stone plinths punctuate and give rhythm to the edges of the square, becoming the valuable bases of existing trees and grafts. The existing rows are implemented with the planting of new trees to reinforce the perspective effect of a green backdrop that, coming from the north frames the GAMeC facade and, from the south, frames a striking view of the hills north of the city. The detail solutions aim to emphasize the continuity of the stone surfaces of the square with reduced joints and a continuous texture of Apricena stone slabs of constant width, laid in alternating courses of varying lengths, from 15 to 40 centimeters, in continuity with the design of the facade. The handrails take the form of lightweight powder-coated steel inserts, with the same bronze-colored finish as the museum’s door and window frames.
The intervention, with a total value of 2 million euros (VAT and technical costs included), will start in late fall 2025, slightly delayed from the initial schedule to align with the construction phases of the new GAMeC. Work is expected to be completed by the end of 2026.
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| Bergamo, project for the new square of the future GAMeC approved. By the end of 2026 the completion of the work |
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