STADIO FRANCHI — SUPERSPATIAL

SUPERSPATIAL

IS A MULTIDISCIPLINARY OFFICE, BASED IN MILAN, THAT USES ARCHITECTURE AS A TOOL TO TRANSFORM CONTEXTS AND TO CHALLENGE THE TRADITIONAL WAY OF THINKING.

NEWS WORK ABOUT

STADIO FRANCHI

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CLIENT
LOCATION
YEAR
COLLABORATORS

COMUNE DI FIRENZE
FIRENZE, ITALY
2022
OPENFABRIC (Landscape)
CEAS (Structure)

The Franchi Stadium is composed of two opposing but inseparable souls: it is both a true monument and a living space within the city with complex functional needs. This is why intervening on the stadium designed by Nervi, rather than relocating elsewhere, is a bold choice. It means exploring the fine line between preservation and reuse, between architecture and monument, between neighborhood and sports infrastructure. Preserving Pierluigi Nervi’s work and restoring it to its original state means conserving a piece of recent history in a city whose identity and strength partly derive from the enhancement and memory of the past. Continuing to play football at Campo di Marte also means betting on the future, turning a beautiful but partially abandoned structure into a vibrant part of the city: an open, functional space that can host both sporting events and urban life. The new stadium is suspended over Nervi’s work, and in the centimeter of space between the two structures lies the soul of the project—a centimeter of distance between reclaiming a symbol and the functionality of a contemporary stadium.
One could borrow the image evoked by Calvino in his *American Lectures*, referring to the lightness of the Florentine poet Cavalcanti, to describe the spirit of the project: “Cavalcanti, who leaps lightly, as he was of the lightest nature.” The agile, sudden leap of the poet-philosopher, who rises above the weight of the world, reveals that its gravity holds the secret of lightness, while what many believe to be the vitality of the times—noisy, aggressive, impatient, and roaring—belongs to the realm of death.
An architecture that engages with Nervi’s work must be one of lightness, an architecture that can maintain the right distance. A project that dares to defy gravity, not to stand out or indulge in formal mannerism, but to step back from what already exists, leaving a great work undisturbed, remaining suspended just a centimeter away from it.