Is it possible to reconsider cities from an architectural approach? Do we still have time to put forward cities that are not only subject to economic interests? Cities that do not turn their back on public spaces for the benefit of private spaces? Can we recover our big city life? Is it possible to go back to community life, local trade, zero KM food, spontaneity and diversity and recover streets to wander around and parks to play in? Cities belonging to everyone and for everyone?
In fact, the new Public Library in Montecarmelo is a square, an agora part of the existing public space, devoted to the neighbourhood’s social and cultural life. The Public Library is a reference centre where daily activity takes place, providing the community somewhere to meet and gain quick access to information through any of its channels.
The building, standing on the urban fabric, has permeable façades granting visual continuity and revealing all that happens inside: an invitation to enter and join unlimited activities.
The protagonist is not the architectural volume, but rather the dynamism, colour and singularity found on the inside. It is not shape that makes a city, but the humans that inhabit it. Indeed, it is a pleasant air-conditioned square, a public and safe space to re-connect with the community.
