The Waterfront of Trieste - "Porto Vecchio"

International ideas competition: architecture and urban design

The Faculty of Architecture, University of Trieste, announces an International Ideas Competition open to students of Architecture and Construction Engineering. At the beginning of June, rules and documentation will be posted on this Web site. The delivery of competition entries shall be by the end of September. The Jury deliberations will be published in October.

The Aim of the Competition
The competition does not have a professional character but it is aimed at stimulating proposals from both individuals or international teams of students. The competition seeks feasible solutions concerning the upgrading of the "Porto Vecchio", the old port area, which is located in the heart of the city, between the embankment of Barcola and the waterfront arc lined with the finest expressions of the neocalssical Trieste. The "Porto Vecchio", which dates from the second half of the 19th century, was for over a hundred years the great Port for the city-emporium of Trieste, the natural gateway for Central and Danubian Europe. Its upgrading entails the identification of new possible functions and of contemporary architectures able to express them. Today the port activities are mostly concentrated in the new and more complex port system stretching from the Lanterna, the old lighthouse, to the Canale navigabile.

Awards
The following prizes will be awarded by the competition jury: First Prize 4,000 euro, Second Prize 2,000 euro, Third Prize 1,000 euro.

Jury
The jury members will be comprised of 3 university teachers, one Italian and two foreign.

The city of Trieste
Trieste has a population of around 250,000 inhabitants. It is the capital of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia, the north-easternmost Region of Italy. The great Emporium, the "New City for the Merchant class", was born at the beginning of the 18th century, when Emperor Charles VI of Austria, proclaimed Trieste a Free Port. The "Porto Vecchio" was built during the second half of the 19th century. Numerous warehouses were built at the beginning of the 20th century with the earliest use of reinforced concrete and which now are important evidence for industrial archaeology. Piazza dell'Unità, one of the most beautiful squares of Italy, and the neoclassical neighbourhoods, Teresiano and Giuseppino, overlook the sea with architectures expressing the culture of the New City born as a consequence of the development of maritime traffic from central-western Europe to the Americas, and to the Far East, through the Suez Canal.

Type of competition
The proposals of the students, which should be feasible, will not however have to deal with complex planning issues, such as urban project layout involving a complete indication of use with reference to operational urban planning tools. The actual planning of the competition area proposed would require the participation of public bodies, first of all the Port Authority, associations of professionals, and the experience of large planning teams. We expect students to generate a rich fund of architectural ideas, able to represent shapes and spaces, which should be strong and emblematic, bound to contemporary methods and techniques. These ideas should identify possible connections between the architectural design and the urban plan, providing tangible suggestions for the development and transformation of such an important area of Trieste. The choice of the theme is absolutely open: each team or individual student shall choose it according to their inclinations. The projects submitted will have to take into consideration the relation with the city in its entirety, with the shapes and the values of a very strong natural and built environment.

The "Porto Vecchio" and development perspectives
The issue of the upgrading of the "Porto Vecchio" area has recently been at the centre of interest of institutional bodies and of the Triestine community. Two different but compatible proposals have attracted the attention of the general public and the political Authorities: Trieste Futura and Expo Trieste. Within this framework, the competition is a contribution of the Faculty of Architecture to a debate involving the leading public and private bodies of the city and the Region.

System configuration
All the material concerning the competition will be available only on the Web. The software necessary to enable the downloading and elaboration of materials is the following: text and image programmes, AutoCAD of Autodesk, (release 13, 14 or 2000).

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