The intervention concerns the restoration and regeneration of the Benedictine cloisters of San Pietro, the most extraordinary monumental complex in the city of Reggio Emilia. The challenge was grafted on the particular nature of the object of restoration, an ancient monastery unused for centuries as such, a place destined for the use of a few and circumscribed towards the surrounding space within its closed cloisters, once vegetable gardens and open countryside, with the aim of opening it to the city and public use.
The monumental body is structured around two cloisters, the oldest of which dating back to the founding years in the second decade of the 16th century, and testifies to a moment of incredible liveliness of the monastic and Benedictine architecture. There is with extraordinary evidence not only a change of scale between the two cloisters but also the passage from the Renaissance and extremely measured architecture of Chiostro Piccolo to the late Renaissance and mannerist architecture of Chiostro Grande, whose construction site was started in 1541 and in largely completed around 1623.
The complex has undergone many vicissitudes that over the centuries have transformed it, starting from the Napoleonic era, into a civil court, military barracks, educated for girls, while the areas of relevance retained the only original size with most of the walls that surrounded the monastery and the old stables. As a military area then decommissioned in the late twentieth century, this place represented an inaccessible area in the heart of the historic city until the moment of rediscovery for sporadic events such as the European Photography festival. With the aim of strengthening its natural and strategic cultural vocation, the restoration of the complex was financed with European funds through the regional program POR-FESR Axis 6 "Attractive and participatory cities" to return it to the public as a cultural center of international relevance.
The project involved three closely related interventions in a single operation. The first concerned the completion of the conservative restoration of the monumental body with the adaptation of the functional equipment for a fruition of excellence. The second involved the demolition of the minor bodies behind them, incongruous volumes dating back to the most recent military occupation, and the reconstruction on the same footprint of the new building of the Urban Open Laboratories, in close relationship with the monumental complex and in functional continuity with the adjacent building of the old stable, also restored as an integral part of the Laboratories. The third intervention involved the redevelopment of the courtyard spaces and the areas behind them that persist between the buildings, formerly connected to the monastery, discovering its function as a public crossing and as a relationship space open to the city. Lastly, the intervention involved the restoration of the facades of the adjacent former military building CasermaTaddei which overlook the external areas of the monastic complex.
The regeneration of the monumental body was carried out through the completion of the conservative restoration of the basement floor, mezzanine floor and cloisters, with the only exception of the first floor. Given the nature and complexity of this extraordinary building, between project and construction site we acted with the utmost rigor, trying to respond with operational and methodological coherence, where operational questions helped to refine methodological choices and viceversa, as happens in restoration projects of big complexity.
One example is the method of intervention adopted in Chiostro Piccolo, the first space that is discovered by accessing the monumental part, where the logic of maintaining traces of time has prevailed, for example in the terracotta flooring, going to integrate in a timely manner with recycled materials found in the basement of the building itself and leaving the signs of wear. The most attentive visitors will certainly not miss the signs of the infill of the arches made in military times in both cloisters to maximize the spaces of the ancient monastery, visible traces in the signs of ties, bolts and other "wounds" deliberately left visible in filigree during the restoration site. In Chiostro Grande, however, whose pavement had no trace except in historical photographs, an untreated hand-made terracotta with an ancient style was laid.
Once the construction of large buildings lasted centuries and usually went beyond the earthly life of their creators and builders. In a certain sense, they were dynamic entities which left in succession to subsequent generations even large parts not completed, with respect to which they were required to continue the works, adapting them to the further transformations that the complex required. It would be wrong to imagine these factories as statically frozen entities in an improperly original condition, because they were not completed or due to the continuous transformations over time.
The Chiostri di San Pietro complex follows the casuistry of other large contemporary complexes, showing signs of stratified transformations or unfinished parts to be carefully interpreted. The traces of the changes that the complex has undergone over time have been maintained, preserving the signs of the alterations and changes of destination, while enhancing the unfinished character, a condition that has become the guiding thread of our intervention not only for the monumental part. It is with this spirit of rediscovery and enhancement that the project and the restoration site of the entire complex were addressed.
The most relevant aspect that required the greatest philological rigor was the intervention on the Chiostro Grande. Established through authoritative attributions and fully documented the presence of Giulio Romano in Reggio Emilia, dated in the period of time between 1538 and 1542, in conjunction with the commitment alongside the monks of San Benedetto in Polirone for the reform of the abbey church, it remains to fully understand the real contribution to the Emilian city, which most likely goes up to 1546. While the construction of the bell tower of the church of San Prospero is documented, almost coeval with the design of the Rustica and the Portale della Dogana in Mantua, Giulio Romano's contribution to the construction of the Chiostro Grande of the San Pietro complex is sanctioned by Bruno Adorni.
On the contrary, the question that still leaves ample interpretative space, regarding the reasons for the abnormal condition of the Chiostro Grande, is that of the current lowered portion of the courtyard and the emergence of the base wall part, which is the subject of a debate, in the absence of reliable documents, on what was the level and nature of the floor in the original project. Adorni himself dwells in terms of conjecture on the historical reconstruction of the possible realization of a filling of earth probably never completed or partially started and then eventually removed in the following centuries.
It would seem logical that the share should be slightly lowered compared to the walkway of the loggia, an evident aspect by observing the openings in correspondence with the central serliane that jut out into the void or the rough-hewn rustication visible in the base part below, where moreover the structure of the arches emerges unloading of the vaults with different geometries, a sign of an interrupted construction site then taken up again with the Giulio Romano project. But the Chiostro Grande today returns in a completely natural waythe extraordinary historicized unfinished condition that reconfigures the courtyard as an arena or cavea ideally lowered compared to the loggiato of the Chiostro Grande and placed at the same level as the surrounding courtyard areas.
The nowadays aspect is that of a typological anomaly unique in its kind, which generates an extraordinary glance at those who access the Chiostro Grande from the lower level, allowing the independent use of the courtyard with respect to the level of the loggiato. This condition allows not only direct use from outdoor spaces, but also a privileged use for events, a situation that the project has enhanced and emphasized also in relation to the choice of flooring.The lowered and thus paved Chiostro Grande becomes even more clearly an interior or a large room without ceiling, emphasizing an intention implicit in the formal nature of the cloister as an outdoor room.
The image of the unfinished transforms and transmigrates finding its own formal completenessas in Michelangelo latest works.For methodological coherence it was then decided to reveal the unfinished also in the wall finish of the base part outcropping in the Chiostro Grande leaving in filigree with a veil all traces of the stratified transformations. Among these, the "scars" of the external stairways remain particularly evident, demolished already during the previous construction site conducted by the Superintendency, and built in the nineteenth century to access the courtyard from the porch, obviating the closing of the last rampant of the staircase that led to the basement.
The Chiostri di San Pietro complex testify to an unfinished condition also in the planimetric sense, since evidently the complex was destined for expansion towards the east, as shown not only by the drawings attributed to Giulio Della Torre, but also today's state of the large wall that delimits the monumental body towards the courtyard areas to the east, a front without decorations or elements of relief if not buffered holes ready to be reopened at the time of expansion to serve future cells. On the other hands it would not be justified the extraordinary size of the Chiostro Grande compared to the small number of rooms in the north and west wings.
The unfinished has become the point of view, the method and the conceptual filter for each choice that has regarded the entire complex, including new additions and open spaces. It is a principle that expands the meaning of the context, interprets what is not visible, amplifies it and places a non-formal, non-definitive limit on it, assuming a higher order completeness as a possible point of arrival. Following this approach was a way to leave the project open, refining the method during the intervention.
This unfinished condition also in relation to the courtyard areas has allowed conceptually to consider the space behind it as independent from the monumental body, with which it also maintains a direct relationship to the lowered portion of the Chiostro Grande. This relationship is underlined by the only opening which, from the elevation of the mezzanine floor, has been maintained with the direct view towards the courtyard areas and the old stables, allowing to perceive the surrounding walls in full and from an elevated position that once delimited the productive areas of the monastery.
We have also intervened where there were missing functional elements through choices coherent with the restoration of the building. The major effort was towards finding a balanced relationship between the newly inserted materials and those carefully restored. The original doors around the loggiato and the entrance door to the monastery have disappeared since the time of reuse in military period, it was decided to make the new insertions clearly recognizable with a strong material-chromatic connotation. Like the casings that conceal the fan coils, they are made of burnished brass and interact at a distance as elements that wink to ancient materials and as such will age with wear and tear taking the patina of time.
In particular, the new doors of the halls of the Chiostro Grande communicate in terms of material richness with the baroque stucco portals that frame them. Among the rediscovered parts, the most important was the reopening of the last rampant of the seventeenth century staircase, which remained segregated as a deposit from the nearby part of the church of San Pietro at the time of the separation, in the nineteenth century, between the monastery and his church.
This operation permitted us to avoid the creation of new external staircases, on the contrary permitting to fully restore the ancient staircase and the possibility to get to the basement level, rediscovering the beautiful small courtyard previously inaccessible between the monastery and the church. We have intervened also on the vertical connections by creating, behind the twentieth-century staircase and in spaces without decorations or vaulted ceiling, an elevator that connects all the monastery levels from the basement floor. Newly accessible, this level returns back to the public through the ring corridor corresponding to the loggia above. In the accessible rooms at this level, we created a new toilet block in the west wing and technical rooms in the north wing.
The Open Urban Laboratories represent the management "machine" of the complex, an aspect emphasized by the architectural form and by the emergence in the sloping roof of the technical volumes also serving the monumental body, avoiding machineries incompatible with the extraordinary architecture of the monastery.
Built on the footprint of military buildings already destined for demolition, the new building defines the completion and closure of the monumental complex to the north, ideally representing the limit and edge towards the twentieth-century city which is located behind.
Conceived as a sequence of three large serial spaces, it is characterized by maximum internal flexibility also in relation to the external spaces and the courtyards which favor natural through ventilation. The south facade allows the maximum contribution of natural lighting controlled through a polycarbonate system and wooden bars, from which the heads of the concrete partitions emerge to denounce the scansion of the internal spaces. All the wall structures are in white washed concrete and left exposed.
The horizontal glazed opening that runs for all the length of the laboratories allows uninterrupted views of the perimeter wall of the ancient monastery and excludes the view of the upper part, as if to underline a protected area enclosed in the heart of the city. The serial aspect, the bare structure, the rhythm of the facade in the repetition of its constituent elements and in the interruption of the wooden bars when the head of the beams emerges, all this contributes to recalling a remote dialogue with the monumental order of the building ancient and its unfinished base part.
The restoration of the old stable, located towards the east of the courtyard areas, was carried out with the same criteria adopted for the monumental part, although of minor value and without any decorative element. Formerly used as horse stables for the monastery before and then for the military area, the building has undergone multiple transformations over the centuries, which have only partially preserved its original status. The vaulted space on the ground floor remains and the unitary space of the upper floor has been rediscovered, with the restorations of the wooden roof.
In the facades we rediscovered the original window holes and the ancient wall texture treated with a lime veil that allows to read the wall face with its "scars". The aim was also to seek a balanced relationship between old and new through a material dialogue with the adjacent Laboratory building. At the head of the two buildings, where they converge, the ancient courtyard on the side of the stables has been rediscovered like the oldest part of the wall that originally surrounded the areas behind the monastery, today the visual fulcrum of the portals that define the internal spaces of the Laboratories.
The intervention was completed with the redevelopment of the courtyard areas, before our intervention asphalted spaces resulting from the prolonged use for the military use. With the aim of rediscovering them as connecting spaces between the restored buildings and as public places, the definition of the new spaces was achieved through the rediscovery of the visual relationships and connections between old buildings, new building and open spaces, but also with the planting of large trees, with a new lighting system enhancing and defining the spaces and with a new calcestrepermeable flooring that emphasizes the continuity of the pedestrian area.
Like a natural soil from which buildings emerge, this finds its culmination in the ChiostroGrande which can be accessed in continuity with the courtyard areas. To emphasize the appearance of natural soil from which the base of the Chiostro Grande emerges and to reinforce its unfinished aspect, a gap has been left between the new flooring and the rough masonry that allows the outflow of rainwater, behind which and up to the wall small gravel has been crammed.The calcestre flooring is a mixture of crushed Botticino marble quarry with local inert material that gives a hazel-yellow color with a natural appearance better integrated with the dominant colors of the monumental part. While allowing the driveway for the loading related to the events in the monumental complex, the external spaces of Chiostri di San Pietro are exclusively pedestrian, permitting to enjoy a quiet and central place without any disturbance.
The new natural flooring continues uninterruptedly, mending the internal and external spaces of the complex, as an element of continuity contributing to a material and perceptive unity in relationship with the old and new buildings. The same impression has been sought in the choice of materials for the whole intervention, studying the proportions between the parts, in the balanced relationship between the buildings, in the way in which they interact with each other and with the external spaces.
The newly inserted green is only of the vertical type also to allow maximum flexibility in the use of public spaces. They are defined by the large adult plane trees, which contribute to the new perception of the open spaces, and by the vines emerging from the fine gravel placed in the perimeter of the courtyards and rising on the ancient walls that originally surrounded the monastery. Rediscovering the ancient wallsprotected with a veil of slaked lime the latter are enhanced as a backdrop that defines the edges of the entire restored complex.
Originally the entrance to the monastery was from the churchyard of the adjacent church of San Pietro through the Chiostro Piccolo, for this reason also named Chiostro della Porta. It is in more recent times that the entrance was consolidated on the opposite side, through the entrance courtyard from via Emilia, where once there were the vegetable gardens and the production areas of the monastic complex, confined within walls and accessible only from the internal spaces. Confirming the consolidated entrance on this side, the problem remained of defining a ramp to allow wider access to the ancient building. Due to these aspects, the new ramp that leads to the monumental body detaches from it as an autonomous element, contributing rather to the definition of the edge of the entrance courtyard with respect to the pedestrian path that detaches and continues north.
The parapet in thick wooden bars, markedly oversized compared to the mere protection function, constructively recalls the façade of the Laboratories and horizontally turns on the external side as a seat. The high back, which continues throughout the development of the ramp and is also turned vertically in correspondence with the steps on the opposite side, visually directs towards the entrance, accompanying perceptively towards the raised altitude of the Chiostro Piccolo progressively seen in the background. But by far the most important aspect of the intervention was reopening the accesses to the monumental complex from two opposite sides, allowing an urban crossing prevented for centuries and opening to the city the ancient rediscovered spaces.
Conducted under the supervision of the Superintendency for Architectural Heritage, the intervention was oriented towards the search for a balanced relationship between rediscovering spaces and setting up compatible uses, letting the Benedictine matrix of this extraordinary complex guide you, masterfully expressed by Paolo Rumiz: « What balance is possible between the need to open up to the world and the closed charm of the cloister? All Benedictine life is marked by this dialectic».
