BETWEEN TOWER AND RIVER workshop.

The workshop “Between Tower and River”, that will run from Monday 1 to Friday 5 April 2019, continues the long-time collaboration between Kent State University Florence, College of Architecture & Environmental Design and DIDA, Dipartimento di Architettura dell’Università degli Studi di Firenze.
Previous experiences have seen students engaged in architecture workshops and studios focused on the reconstruction of the urban fabric in small Tuscan historical centers: Bientina (2008), San Miniato (2011), and Magliano in Toscana (2017 and 2018).

The workshop will be led by professor Fabrizio Arrigoni from the Dipartimento di Architettura dell’Università degli Studi di Firenze and professors Filippo Caprioglio, Alberto Francini, Paola Giaconia and Andrea Ponsi, and will be tutored by Antonio Acocella and Milena Blagojevic.

47 Architecture students enrolled at KSUF CAED and 21 students enrolled at UniFi will work side by side to design a new community center next to the Torrino di Santa Rosa as well as the open spaces between the bank of the river Arno and the road.

Located between Ponte Vespucci and Ponte della Vittoria, the Torrino di Santa Rosa is a building that was part of the defensive system of the third and last circle of walls. It dates back to 1324. Coming from Lungarno Soderini you can recognize the nineteenth-century tabernacle built between the city gate and the tower; it contains a Pietà (with Saints John the Evangelist and Mary Magdalene) probably painted in the early sixteenth century and generally attributed to Ridolfo del Ghirlandaio. The work is what remains of the nearby oratory of Santa Rosa di Viterbo, demolished in the mid-eighteenth century. Today, in the garden surrounding the tower, a modest building houses the premises of a recreational club.