Notes from L’Isoletto

Whist the core of the city is recognised as a UNESCO world heritage site, the western side of Florence houses its airport, the central market and the sprawl of housing, light industrial and warehousing that can be found in many post-industrial European cities. It is still possible to see the remnants of market gardens, small farms and hamlets that have been absorbed into the unplanned sprawl.

At the end of the Second World War the city desperately needed homes, the battle for Florence had been fierce and families were displaced, there were many refugees and the shift from country to town was well underway.

The Marshall Plan funded much European post war reconstruction and Italy was one of the principal recipients receiving $1.5 Billion of the grant aid, 11% of the total. The aid was split between food to feed a starving nation and infrastructure investment to kick start the economy by funding power plants, road and rail, and industry. The American intention was to consolidate its allies in the face of the emerging threat from the Soviet Union.

Controversially, The City of Florence partly used the aid to create a new suburb on 100 acres of waste ground to the southwest of the centre on the banks of the Arno, called L’Isoletto, (small island) it was an entirely new district built in the early 1950’s, the first residents  started to move in from 1954. The project took 14 years to complete and provided 350,000 homes.

Once again Giovanni Michelucci was involved in the masterplan along with a group of other Florentine architects. 70 years on and it has become a well-loved and very real part of the city to the extent it is known as “The Fourth Quarter”. The masterplan was centred on a central piazza with a church and a range of commercial, medical and retail units. As well as schools there are generous parks and open spaces. The housing, whilst unremarkable is well designed in a Tuscany meets Scandinavian modern style, the church is a particularly good example of this, designed by Guido Morozzi.

Recently the piazza has been reimagined by Rossiprodi Associati who have relandscaped it and provided a canopy for the market, it is a very successful intervention that reinforces the heart of this family neighbourhood.

Across the Arno is San Donato-Novoli, a place you pass through on the way to the airport where up until 30 years ago there was a large Fiat plant. In 1993, following a series of unsuccessful modernist design proposals, Leon Krier was appointed to masterplan the 80 acre site. Like L’Isolotto the plan includes a large park, homes and a central piazza, it also has a retail centre, offices, and a fair amount of university teaching space.

Krier’s plan was a “piano guida” and the scheme was built out by Gabetti and Isola architects. Like L’Isolotto it has a central square lined with cafes, retail, hotel and some university buildings. Sadly, it has not generated the sense of community and life that we see in Michelucci’s piazza. The scale is similar, the buildings are the same sort of height, the landscape isn’t bad, the ingredients are there, the university brings transient activity, and the retail centre attracts a lot of people from the wider area, but it feels empty and a little forlorn. 

This is large scale urban regeneration similar in size to L’Isolotto, but the masterplan only includes a 78,000 sq m  of housing, which would be approximately 12,000 units, considerably less than “The Fourth Quarter”. This is a commercial development, so it is the financial model that determines the mix, land value and rental income for commercial and private residential uses will always outweigh social housing - there was no Marshall Plan 30 years ago. It may well bed in, and the residential architecture, whilst “Krieresque” in style, is on the face of it perfectly liveable

So why is it not a “place”?  “Mixed use development” and “Active Frontages” are slightly lazy modern planning expressions that typify regenerative development of this type. Cities are more nuanced than that, as much as anything it is the balance of uses that will determine the success of a development. Novoli has that mix of uses but there are far too many empty ground floor units and not enough residents to bring life to the place. L’Isolotto has a hierarchy, smaller houses and ground floor apartments with gardens around the edges, and an urban space that is the centre of the community, it is modelled on the garden city plan. Novoli has adopted an urbanist approach, perhaps it needs to up the residential density and loosen up the landscaping to fulfil the ambition of the original masterplan