Platform_Architecture_and_Design_1.pdf

FRAMES
33
Photos
5+1AA
Project
BNL-BNP PARIBAS HEADQUARTERS
Location
ROMA, ITALIA
2012-2016
Architects
Alfonso Femia, Gianluca Peluffo,
Simonetta Cenci, Annalaura Spalla
The design of the new BNL headquarters is part of a particular and unique
context. Unique because the nature of the context is a layering of infrastructures
that are separated by two important urban areas of the city of Rome, thanks to the
construction of the high-speed rail station, which leads to a new role, not only in
terms of services but also as “urban place”. Particular because the area where the
new building will stand, due to its geometric shape and topography and its relative
orientation, suggests designing the building according to the principle of “Janus”.
How can a building resolve the division of two neighbourhoods? What
benefits can this bring to those who live in the neighbourhood, those who
pass through and those who will work in the same building?
Infrastructures exist, necessary and essential in order for places to become
destinations or transited at different levels. Obviously they also take on the role of
physical connectors and sometimes potential urban connectors but they are not
sufficient by themselves. It is necessary to develop an urban project around the
opportunity that the infrastructure creates and it is also essential to be able to think
rationally reflecting long and deeply in order to understand not only the quantitative
potential but above all the urban reality, its potential development, osmosis and
connection with the existing situation or even just to be able to give a new role and a
new potential to the urban context.
The real building/bridge is the Tiburtine Station, the infrastructure that makes it
possible to initiate and impose a strategic line of reasoning on the city, or at least
a part of it. The strategic choices decided upon first by BNP Paribas and then by
BNL of assessing the area as the best in the Rome area in which to concentrate their
headquarters and over 3,000 employees are the result of a logical process that follows
the best European experiences: to create a critical mass where the infrastructures
can establish themselves as new urban and regional centres, without the need for
private transport and maximizing the use of public transport. (It is sufficient in
this sense to look at and follow what is happening in Paris with the Grand Paris
infrastructural project).
The neighbourhood and districts together with the station will thus benefit from
a daily infusion of lifeblood from 3,000 people as well as the commercial activities
which will have a positive effect on the area and its surroundings, while the same
Tiburtine area will extend out of the limits determined by the interruption of the
infrastructure, returning to be a unifying part of the city, both as a destination and
as a place of transit.