The Waterfront redevelopment project in Marina di Carrara aims to enhance functionality, services, and relationships between the port area and the urban context. Positioned as a strategic intervention, it promotes the tourism offerings of northern Tuscany, characterized by a complex commercial system, an extensive coastline, and the historical-naturalistic system of the Apuan marble basin.
The project envisages a series of integrated urban regeneration interventions to improve relations between the port area, the city and the coastal tourism system.
Territory
Marina di Carrara’s port, established in the mid-19th century for marble shipping, is a global hub for stone product handling. Connected to 85+ ports across 48 countries, it manages diverse cargo (stone, metal, project cargo) and ro-ro traffic. Critical to the Tyrrhenian multimodal corridor, linking the Mediterranean to Central Europe, its strength lies in efficient hinterland connections, facilitating easy facility transfer to loading docks. Notable features include Nuovi Cantieri Apuania production site, a significant fishing fleet, a Yacht Club, and 500 moorings for pleasure boats.
Project area
The intervention is located in the area adjacent to the Marina di Carrara port system, a fundamental component of a broader settlement and production context involving the entire municipal territory of Carrara. In particular, the territorial system is based on the millenary historical evolution and development of the extraction and transport of the famous marble extracted from the slopes of the Apuan Alps, brought downstream and often shipped and transported by sea.
The coastal strip between the port area and the city, from the current limit of the port to the entire carriageway of the Colombo – da Verrazzano avenues, constitutes the area of intervention: the ‘waterfront’ that develops from the mouth of the Carrione torrent to the promenade on the western pier. Analyses of the state of affairs carried out have revealed a number of critical points, of an architectural, functional and perceptive nature. The presence of architectural barriers along the avenues, the state of the pedestrian paths – often occupied by parked vehicles – and the strong intermingling with local traffic constitute some of these critical issues, with consequences on the green areas located in front of the port, which are widely compromised.
Added to this is the reduced liveability of the waterfront areas, with particular reference to the da Verrazzano and Colombo avenues and the western promenade, due to the presence of a strong discomfort, including noise, generated by heavy vehicles travelling along the urban road to reach the western access to the port. Other critical issues concern the lack of a usable promenade along the seafront and the presence of disqualifying walls and fences that shield the main ‘city-port’ perspectives and the views towards the Apuan Alps chain.
In addition, the need was identified for a wide-ranging redevelopment of the most degraded and marginalised port-city interface areas, and the connective restoration of the urban fabric in the parts of the city that are now divided: the more animated part to the west and the less vital part to the east.
Insights
The formation of the cognitive framework necessary for the process of shaping the design solutions involved the development of interdisciplinary, in-depth studies on the coastal system to the east and west of the port, the pine forest strip, the built-up area – mainly residential and commercial (west) or productive (east) – and the infrastructure system. In addition, we looked into the historical framework of the territory and the historical evolution of the port of Marina di Carrara up to its current state.
In particular, multiple specialised studies were conducted related to:
- Historical-patrimonial aspect of the port and the Marina di Carrara coastal strip site. The historical framework of the port was concerned with the origin and development of the port of Marina di Carrara as it is historically linked to the mining activities and marble industries of the Apuan territory, which are still among the leading local socio-economic activities today.
- Analysis of areas of archaeological interest and sites subject to archaeological finds
- Geomorphological and archaeological framework
- The analysis of the surface water environment
- The analysis of vegetation, flora and urban/anthropic and natural ecosystems.
Project
The intervention actions developed for the functional, architectural and landscape rehabilitation of urban relations at the Port-City interface relate to four homogeneous project areas
Areas
1) “PORTA DI LEVANTE – INTERSECTION OF VIALE DA VERRAZZANO, VIALE ZACCAGNA AND VIALE DELLE PINETE”
It concerns reorganising and upgrading the access road system to the port to reduce the city’s crossing by heavy vehicles. A system of roundabouts is planned to specialise in urban traffic and tourist or transport traffic directed to the port.
2) SYSTEM OF SPECIALISED ROADS AND SYSTEM OF PROTECTED ACCESSES
The project includes the redesign of the Cristoforo Colombo and Giovanni da Verrazzano avenues, which separate the port areas from the city, through redevelopment, the addition of roundabouts and parking areas, and the reforestation of tree-lined sections that are currently compromised. The aim is to reorganise vehicular traffic management, improve road safety, especially during peak hours, and anticipate future needs related to the development of the port’s merchant, shipbuilding and cruise activities.
3) “PORTA DI PONENTE – INTERVENTIONS FOR THE INTEGRATED FUNCTIONAL USE OF THE COASTAL SYSTEM”
This area, located in the western part of the port, will be redeveloped, transforming an area of over 20,000 m2 currently occupied by warehouses. The aim is to create squares and connecting paths between the city and the sea. By reorganising the road system, a spacious tree-lined pedestrian plaza near the coastal pine forest offers 53 parking spaces. The project includes multifunctional buildings and a guesthouse for the port authority. The main building, ‘ la porta di ponente,’ will be accessible through a large staircase leading to a panoramic terrace facing the sea and the Apuan Alps. At the rear, an equipped square will host cultural and entertainment events, with access to a tree-lined space extending to the sea.
4) PORTA DI PONENTE – INTERVENTIONS FOR THE PROTECTED USE OF THE SEA PROMENADE AT THE WESTERN PIER
An implementation of the system of paths facing the sea near the beach and on the breakwater of the port has been studied, inspired by the production traditions of the marble basin and the symbolic evocation of the historical landscape of the coastline composed of sand dunes, now almost disappeared, populated by shrubs and autochthonous vegetation. The dune system has been recreated with curvilinear pools of different heights drawing a labyrinth of routes towards the beach and the seafront.
Seafront
The seafront promenade begins with a historical section, characterised by monolithic blocks recalling the Carrara marble extracted from the quarries and shipped to the port.
The promenade rises in the vicinity of the breakwater, offering a panoramic view of the sea and the Gulf of Poets through an equipped path of over 1200 m with seating, shading systems and night lighting.
The port area is concealed by metal elements that function as visual filters, allowing the view of the port facilities and the Apuan Alps through large windows at the points of most significant landscape interest.
The first part of the seafront promenade is a path linked to local history by a number of monolithic blocks that are reflected in the water, recalling the marble extracted from the quarries of Carrara and shipped to the port for centuries.
Near the breakwater, the promenade reaches a higher level, at the top of the breakwater, where one can enjoy the seascape and the coastline of the nearby Gulf of Poets, along a more than 1,200 m long path equipped with: seats, shading systems and night lighting.In addition, the port area is masked with a system of metal elements that act as visual filters that overlook, with large windows, the most interesting landscape points, allowing the perception of the imposing port facilities and the natural setting of the Apuan Alps.
Strategic objectives
The project aims at achieving the following strategic objectives:
- Solve critical environmental, landscape and infrastructural issues in the urban area surrounding the Port;
- Strengthen the Port’s shipbuilding, merchant and cruise offer;
- Improve intermodal efficiency and logistic
- productive competitiveness to satisfy an increasingly specialised demand-oriented towards integrated industrial processes with contractual timing and commercial speed.
