In 2008 the local council of Guastalla organized a competition for the redevelopment of ‘piazza della Repubblica’, a historic area which today houses the market, a large car park and a post office built in the 1960s, after the demolition of San Francesco convent.

The Church of San Francesco is still conserved and used as an exhibition hall. The contest’s notice requested confirmation of the car park and market, the restyling of the existing post office and the realization of offices and service spaces for the exhibition hall.

The project defines a sequence of urban spaces, which branch out from the large parking area and reaches the new internal square, imagined as a sort of open sky ‘urban’ room, open for a variety of uses (parking, conventions and open air exhibitions, ‘party room’, entrance to exhibition space).

Society rediscovers a sense of urban space-the image and essence of the community- in an intervention which does not forfeit contemporary language.