Piazza San Lorenzo
The redevelopment of Piazza San Lorenzo in Pistoia is a fundamental part of the city’s new vision within the PNRR programme “San Lorenzo Regenerates”, which intervenes in a series of important places in the historic centre.
The presence of three monumental elements — the Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, the Conventual Church of San Lorenzo, and the Oratory of Sant’Ansano — positioned on a single scenic, theatrical backdrop with staggered wings, makes Piazza San Lorenzo unique at a national level.
The project is centred on this theme, creating a vast urban basin that recomposes the original perceptive condition of the place. Along the east and west side walls, rows of trees define both new paths and spaces for relaxation. The road to the east is freed from parking spaces and reduced in section, allowing the building fronts to enter into dialogue with the new public space.
The project focuses on the dialectical relationship between the natural and the mineral, where the plastic masses of the monuments and the minor urban fabric dialogue through the iridescent reflection of floor surfaces with differentiated roughness.
The inclusion of the natural element, in addition to ecological reasons related to shading and drainage, represents a link with the memory and history of the place. The project area was historically home to nurseries and vegetable gardens: nursery activity is documented within the San Lorenzo complex until a few decades ago, and Pistoia has always had a strong connection with nursery cultivation.
Memory and innovation find a balanced dialogue in the project, in the name of a new and contemporary urban landscape scenario.
The project redefines the entire basin of the square, reconquering this area of the historic centre of Pistoia for public use and vocation. The Firenzuola stone paving connects the three churchyards through three types of workmanship: diamond-sawn wire finish for the extensive areas, brushed silk finish to frame the linear floor lights, and striped finish for the area south of the intersection with Via del Ceppo. Together, these surfaces compose a dominant iridescent grey ground from which the monumental buildings emerge.
Rainwater management is structured through a system of linear channels and two underground tanks that collect water and allow its reuse for irrigation. The grids are integrated into the texture of the paving. Ancient and modern establish a close dialogue through harmonious contrast, combining functionality and ecology.
The new green system assumes fundamental importance both for ecological and environmental reasons, representing a very large area within the entire basin and therefore guaranteeing excellent soil permeability — far greater than the pre-existing flowerbed — as well as a consistent reduction in CO₂. It also plays a key role in the spatial definition of visual axes and in the structuring of micro-areas for social relations.
The greenery is structured through rows of trees, shrub surfaces, and perennials. In this project, the urban space was designed with the aim of creating a “domestic” public space, so that it could become the “garden of the city”.
The shrub species arranged within the sequence of large flowerbeds are organised as in nurseries, in homogeneous thematic bands. The quincunx planting layout, together with the choice of species with a dynamic and open habit, contributes to the visual movement of the new green landscape.
The relational areas created between the flowerbeds are characterised by a system of linear WPC seats arranged to create “urban living rooms”, where people of all ages can spend their free time in complete freedom and safety.
The choice of species was aimed at minimising maintenance in order to ensure sustainable management costs for the administration. A total of 68 new trees were planted, including the following species: Acer campestre L., Acer japonicum, Erythrina, grafted male Ginkgo biloba, Liriodendron tulipifera, Schinus molle, Fraxinus oxycarpa ‘Raywood’, and Malus ‘Profusion’.
Starting from the west side, along the former Hospital of San Jacopo, there is a row of Liriodendron tulipifera with two large beds of Cistus salvifolius at the base. These two flowerbeds configure a circular area — a “square within the square” — with two arched seats made of solid travertine that mark the presence of the Pistoia Underground route, indicated by a floor skylight.
On the east side, an articulated system of rows structures the sequence of spaces dedicated to relaxation and meeting. The tree species used are Ginkgo biloba, Liriodendron tulipifera, Acer campestre, Fraxinus oxycarpa ‘Raywood’, and Acer japonicum. On the perspective backdrop, to screen the banal modern building, new ready-to-use field maples are planted.
The shrubs, planted for a total of 4,666 specimens, include the following species: Festuca glauca varieties, Blue Grow, Heuchera, Pennisetum setaceum, Bulbine frutescens, Myrtus communis microphylla, Lavandula dentata var. candicans, Cytisus varieties multiflorus and scoparius, Cistus varieties albidus, ladanifer, and salvifolius, and Cornus alba var. sibirica.
The lighting system was designed with maximum attention to both functional general lighting and architectural lighting aimed at enhancing the three monumental façades present in the square.
The three façades are set on perspective planes staggered in depth. This led to an interpretation of the lighting theme as static-dynamic light — with variations in flux and white temperature between 2700 K and 4000 K — and to the creation of dynamic lighting scenarios combined with the floor lights.
The area north of the square, located east of the large church of San Lorenzo, has maintained its function as a parking area for residents. The margins have been reconfigured through the introduction of rows of trees and flowerbeds, with Schinus molle and Bulbine frutescens, as well as a new zigzag-shaped sidewalk where the Malus ‘Profusion’ tree system appears.
The colours of the planted species, including their seasonal variations, create a perceptive dynamism that characterises the urban public space as a place of unexpected encounters, where the eye moves between different colours and different postures.
The parking spaces were designed in agreement with the municipal police, identifying white bands in the manoeuvring areas in order to draw attention to both motorists and pedestrians. These bands also refer to the graphic theme of the black-and-white sections of the bell tower of the city cathedral, which is also visible from here.
The sculpture by F. Bartolozzi, created in 1993 in memory of the citizens shot during the Nazi-Fascist massacre of 1943 that took place in the square, has been relocated to the area north of the square, in front of the plaque set into the side wall of San Lorenzo that commemorates the event. Here, the monument is visible from all positions and acts as a visual hinge between the southern and northern parts of the square.
A pair of solid travertine seats marks the limit between the new paving and the pre-existing historic terracotta floor in the churchyard of the church of San Lorenzo.
Finally, the public space is fully accessible to all users, as there are no architectural barriers.
