The project for the requalification of Piazza Libertà and of the historical center is the result of a competition followed by a participatory process launched by the City of Lissone in 2019.

The intervention aims to three main goals: the development of attractivity for all the categories of users (from the children to the eldest), the increase of comfort (for a livable square in all the seasons of the year and in all the hours of the day) and the enhancement of memory, constituted by the existing heritage (Casa del Fascio by Giuseppe Terragni and Antonio Carminati, Villa Magatti and Villa Mussi), disappeared (as the circular fountain, moved in Piazza IV novembre in 2006, and the Church of Saint Peter, demolished in 1933) and intangible (as the wood-furniture-design system, that characterizes the city from the economic and cultural point of view). 

For conferring a clearer hierarcy to the open spaces, Piazza Libertà is subdivided in five places: the «urban living-room», bordered by a canopy and by a fountain, the polyfunctional area for the events (market, open-air cinema, playground, exhibitions); a gaming and didactic garden; a square for gaming and reading, the garden of Villa Magatti.

For granting an adequate uniformity to these spaces the project introduces five layers: furniture (the canopy and the fountain, the flower boxes and the seats), green (the rows of hornbeams, the shrubs in the flower boxes, the climbing jasmine on the canopy, the «didactic trees» in Parco De Capitani), the scenographic and safety lighting (in the fountain, in the little canal, in the canopy and in the flower boxes), water, represented through a sequence «point-line-surface» by the water jets in front of Casa del Fascio, by the little canal in front of Villa Mussi and by the fountain in the middle of the «urban living-room», and the signage (with the 10 totems and the introductory panel of the monumental itinerary, the 10 horizontal panels of the wood-furniture-design itinerary and the 5 totem of the botanical itinerary).

The canopy and the fountain

The canopy subdivides with more clarity the space between the Piazza and the area in front of Villa Mussi and offers the citizens a new protected and shaded meeting place. The structure is in corten like the flower boxes, for highlighting the difference between ancient and new, and its geometry is inspired by the rationalist lattice, making the horizontal and vertical axes coplanar and with the same thickness.
The granite fountain is modelled starting from a golden rectangle, with perimetral subtractions for obtaining the seats. The experimentation on the dynamic proportions is an indirect reference to Terragni who introduced these ratios also in the project for Casa del Fascio in Lissone.
The incision on the pavement between the fountain and the canopy reproduces the plan of the Church of Saint Peter, demolished in 1933.

Green

The layer of green is composed by species selected according with the blossom time and with the chromatic seasonal variations. It is constituted by the prosecution of the rows of hornbeams along Piazza Libertà, by the shrubs in the flower boxes and in Parco De Capitani, by the flowers in the Garden of colors and by the 5 «didactic trees» (oak, walnut, ash, cherry, chestnut) that belong to the species commonly used in the furniture production and described with specific signage panels.
 

Furniture

The flower boxes define the southern edge of the square and some spaces of the historical center. They are proportioned starting from a square plan and constituted by two parallelepipeds differentiated by material: stone for the seats, corten for the vases and the wooden slats (with a «dovetail» corner joint, in reference to the artisanal culture of the city) for the cladding.
The seats are divided in three types: individual (disposed in small groups, in the square and in the historical center), linear (in the park) and integrated (obtained by substraction from the fountain or by addition from the flower boxes). Like the flower boxes the starting shape is the cube and the materials, granite and wood, are continuity with the other existing furniture elements. Seen from above or from the front the linear seats show alternately the whole slab and only the head, generating a kind of «mineral sewing» that evokes the «dovetail» joint of the flower boxes.

Water

The reference to water materializes in three complementary geometries: the points, that correspond to the water jets in front of the former Casa del Fascio, that can be adjusted according with the activities; the line, constituted by the little canal in front of Villa Mussi that highlights the façade axis; the surface, represented by the fountain in the middle of the «urban living-room».
This theme derives from the etymological origin of the city name: the word «Lixiones», materialized in a corten and backlit text inside the water pool, refers to the water-carriers of the Roman army these lands were assigned to.

Signage

The layer of signage is articulated in three types: the monumental signage, with 10 totem that describe the main building of the square and of the historical center; the historic signage, with the 10 panels of the «urban living-room» that explain the evolution of the wood-furniture-design system; the botanical signage, with the 5 totems that tell the specificities of the “didactic trees” through a technical description, Cesare Leonardi’s drawings and a series of quotations taken from «Arboreto Salvatico» by Mario Rigoni Stern.

Light

The layer of light acquires a fundamental role, on the one hand granting more safety-security (perceived and effective), on the other hand enhancing the most significant elements of the square.
The functional lighting corresponds to the new perimetral pole lights and to the lighted furniture disposed in the «urban living-room», while the accent lighting regards the three geometries of water (points, line, surface) and the façade of the Casa del Fascio.