Monday, February 19, 2007

Genoa Coast Guard Building



The Coast Guard Building , located in Genoa's Porto Antiquo, was designed by Renzo Piano to serve not only as office space but also housing for the port authority with a future expansion to include docking access in mine. A quick survey of the building easily reveals Piano's desire to maintain and re-conceptualize traditional and iconic architecture already in Genoa: the thin bridges that connect the Coast Guard to the old Cotton Exchange, for example. Another interesting detail of the building is the brick facade that skins the building. Piano used the non-native building material with aesthetic intent but with a non-traditional technique. Instead of being "glued" together with mortar, the face is actually held by thin poles running through the center of the bricks.
Sarah Wade

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