Belvedere is the redefinition of an ancient architectural typology in relation to a changed coastal landscape condition. The new public space acts as the new head of the so-called treno (“train”), part of the urban project developed by Marcello D’Olivo for the city of Lignano in the Fifties. The square is raised, enabling us to observe the sea from above and to perceive the breeze, while at the street level the car parks and the circulation of cars, bikes and pedestrians is rearranged. The device acts in multiple directions: a bridge building links the treno to the beach and, conversely, reconnects the beach to the city, a link now broken by the seaside infrastructures. The monumental staircase stages this connection, and at the same time serves as cavea for concerts held on the beach beside it. Bridge, car park, square, sports facility, observatory, seaside boulevard, theatre, multiple functions are synthetised by this same urban hybrid.
The budget is diverted from the production of objects – street furniture – and non-recyclable infrastructures – underground car park – to the production of space – architecture –, a multiplication of unexpected possibilities determined by the duration of a built form. An equipped bare slab, Belvedere hints at possible transformations – resilience, vertical implementation, redefinition of porosities – aimed at anticipating the future of an architecture, the new needs generated by the Adriatic touristic city.