The project for the Padua Congress Center aims to create relationships that will be able to structure the city in the future. The decision to locate the new building in a sector of the city belonging to the periphery and with scarce spatial qualities, is an opportunity to elaborate a wide-ranging project, anchored to the elements of the context, but which aims to transform this sector of the city into an attractive and representative center of both the Fair and the Congress Center.
The will of the project is based among the other aspects on the transformation of a “non-place” into a vital fulcrum, able to animate this district of the city throughout all the year.
The built space of the squares and the gallery is the welding element between the Fair and the Congress Center, while the unitary architectural expression leaves the clear perception of both destinations. Of the 50s building is preserved only the body with vertical circulation, enhanced by a restoration that recovers its relevant spatial qualities.
The project for the Congress Center is characterized by a gallery that acts as an entrance and a foyer, which connects all the components of the center by organizing the circulations. The reference to the spaces of the urban galleries (passage) and the basilic aisles gives the whole the spatial richness of a real public building. The architectural expression of the building as a whole is contained and does not search for disruptive effects but reserves all the attention to the characteristics of the interior space. The essence of architecture, in our view, is the quality of the interior space and its relations with the outside.