Peccioli, Pisa, Italy
Designed by Mario Cucinella and his team Palazzo Senza Tempo is a response to the municipal administration’s desire to encourage new cultural programs and commercial activity while enhancing the built heritage of this Medieval Tuscan hilltown.
“Peccioli is a real laboratory,” says Mario Cucinella. “In the project, we wanted to carry on the idea that historical centers can give themselves a new life with contemporary elements, rather than living only in the past.”
Centered on a piazza overlooked by the Romanesque church of San Verano, the town of Peccioli is set high above vast olive groves. A public building, Palazzo Senza Tempo comprises a range of renovated and repurposed townhouses dating as far back as the 14th century. Set on the very edge of town, these enjoy direct views east across the unspoiled Era Valley and are now connected internally and externally to a wholly new two-story building.
Old and contemporary elements of the palazzo complex comprise apartments, exhibition spaces, study and co-working spaces, library, café and restaurant, public meeting rooms, and a spectacular cantilevered 600 sq.m terrace, or piazza, projecting over the landscape beyond.
The new terrace is like a bridge connecting a landscape that looks like a painting from the 1500s with the modern world,” says Mario Cucinella.
“With the opening of Palazzo Senza Tempo, the region of Peccioli launches an important theme: that of communities and their public places. It shows the courage of doing something ambitious while respecting history.”
Skylights and bay windows bring welcome daylight inside, and a new glass roof over the passage of a historic courtyard adds visual permeability. The renovated buildings form an interconnected whole, featuring venerable wood-beamed ceilings and, unexpectedly, a dramatic open-stone stair.
The architects’ response to the building reflects the nature of Italian hilltowns, with their successions of narrow alleys leading to wide and open civic spaces. Palazzo Senza Tempo creates the same sense of visual surprise.
The surprise continues when the palazzo reveals its new two-story building. Glazed on three sides, it provides framed views of the landscape. Stepping up and down several levels, lined in wood and with a detailed level of craftsmanship, this is a contemporary building that pays full respect to the local historic fabric and setting.
It demonstrates how truly modern structures can be a natural part of Italian hilltowns wishing to be far more than living museums.
Palazzo Senza Tempo demonstrates how contemporary architecture connects to the public and everyday life of a vibrant town. It exemplifies the potential for new vitality outside the big cities and the way in which the adaptive reuse of historic buildings is a wholly viable part of this development.
Palazzo Senza Tempo is a landmark project in demonstrating a bold yet befitting remodeling approach to Italy’s Medieval hilltowns.
Project: Palazzo Senza Tempo
Architect: Mario Cucinella Architects
Design Team: Mario Cucinella, Marco dell’Agli (project director), Tommaso Tettini, Emanuele Dionigi (project managers), Biagio Amodio, Stefano Bastia, Paolo Greco, Alberto Menozzi, Marta Torsello, Augusta Zanzillo
Photographers: Duccio Malagamba
