A new stadium in Florence, to redesign the relation between the old city and sport facilities

Pierattelli Architetture presents a project for the new stadium of Fiorentina Football Club, together with a Masterplan able to upgrade the urban scenario of the city and offer new spaces and infrastructures.

The stadium of Fiorentina Football Club in Florence (Italy), is a building of historical and artistic interest, built between 1930 and 1932. The Club belongs now to a new chairman, Rocco Commisso, an American-Italian businessman, which has put the need of a modern sport infrastructure as one of the strategic pillars of the club.

In the public debate on the future of the old stadium, comes the proposal of the Florentine Studio Pierattelli Architetture, which has designed a project for the new Fiorentina football ground with a hallmark organic form and a metal mesh cover in the club’s colours – purple, white and red.

The project takes the form of a Masterplan covering the redevelopment of an expansion area in the north-west of the city, Novoli’s district, and it would become a sign of renewal, growth and urban expansion.

The project for the new stadium thus becomes an opportunity to upgrade the urban scenario of one of the most vital areas of the city. It redefines the relationship between architecture and context, resolving other critical issues weighing on the area through the arrival of the stadium.

In fact, this also provides the opportunity to renovate the road network which is noteworthy today for its major infrastructural failings, redressing the balance and creating a new one with the Mercafir (the Florence fruit and vegetable market). The construction of artificial hills completes the project of creating a living, usable architecture with services always open to citizens.

With its hallmark organic form, the particular conformation of the stadium, higher on one side than on the other, brings to mind a “Stone”. A metal mesh in the club’s colours, purple, white and red, covers the outer structure. 16 entrances, 4 of them with turnstiles, with lifts and panoramic stairways, give access to 3 rings of grandstands, as well as to the shopping mall and catering area which are always open to the public.

“The new stadium project certainly provides a unique opportunity for Florence”, says architect Massimo Pierattelli “for rethinking the relationship between the building, its functions and the city, adding new meaning to the structure and creating added value for citizens, as well as for fans”.

The new stadium designed by Pierattelli Architetture is therefore not only grafted on to the existing urban fabric, but becomes part of a new vision of the city, able to combine different functions and leaving areas that are active all year round as a legacy. A holistic vision of the relationship between architecture, urban planning and social life, able to optimise the relationship between city life and sport.