Brescia’s Old Carmine District: The Impact of Planning and Conservation Decisions on the Area’s Built and Social Environment in the 1970s and 1980s

Abstract

This chapter presents the preliminary results of a study of the interventions promoted by the Municipality of Brescia for the recovery of the Carmine district. This district, the old part of the Historical centre, has traditionally experienced the most severe problems of physical and social dereliction, forcing economically disadvantaged social groups to reside in unhealthy conditions. Using the urban planning instrument of the “recovery plan”, since the mid-1970s the City Council has directly promoted and carried out a massive public intervention, combining the objective of preserving the district’s heritage with that of improving the quality of life in the district. The interventions included the renovation of old, unhealthy dwellings on the verge of collapse, while the restoration of other buildings, including monuments, led to the creation of new services (offices and town halls, community and school centres, spaces for cultural associations, furnished green spaces, etc.). Over time, the public initiatives for the area’s rehabilitation generated a chain reaction, resulting in the emergence of several private projects that accelerated the recovery process. The decision of the University of Brescia to renovate a series of imposing monumental buildings and monastic complexes to house the university’s law and economics centres and the rectorate gave Carmine’s redevelopment process a decisive boost in the 1980s, while other buildings in the district were converted into student accommodation. Since the early 2000s, the Municipality of Brescia has promoted another redevelopment plan, the “Carmine Project”, which has completed the transformation of the once notorious district, not only physically and functionally, but also socially, turning it into the most culturally vibrant and multi-ethnic area of the city. Approximately fifty years after the initial radical interventions in the district, this essay aims to reflect upon the motivations, strategies, and outcomes of this physical and social regeneration project, focusing on the initial phase of the 1970s and 1980s. The study begins with the observation that research conducted thus far on the Carmine district has predominantly focused on more contemporary projects and issues, such as the substantial influx of non-EU migrants that impacted the area from the 1990s onwards. Indeed, aside from a few brief accounts published in the 1980s by the very technicians and experts involved in the project (Lombardi, 1982; Ponzoni, Testi, 1985; Lombardi, 1989), a more comprehensive and in-depth analysis of the intervention and its outcomes is currently lacking.