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 SEATS IN THE PARK. MUNICIPALITY OF TURIN 2003


In some public green areas of Turin, from spring 2004, beyond going barefoot in the Park we also will be able to seat and to relax ourselves in a chair of design exclusively designed for the parks of the city. In fact in June 2002 the Municipality of Turin, Divisione Verde Pubblico e Infrastrutture, Settore Verde Pubblico e Nuove Opere (Public Green and Infrastructures Division, Public Green and New Works Section), has advertised the international competition Sedie nel parco (Seats in the Park) for the project of a single-seat chair to freely use in the public green areas. The competition was devoted to architects, designer, artists, engineers, students of the Faculties of Architecture or Engineering, and students of the Advanced Institutes of Design, the Academies of Fine Arts, the Artistic Grammars School and the Arts Institutes of the European Union.
The competition is inserted in a series of projects of the Administration of Turin turned to value the public green areas as a common patrimony to be upgraded and lived, with environmental and territorial requalification interventions of the parks, and along the 70 kilometers of the fluvial areas of city connected themselves through a web of bicycle tracks, pedestrian and naturalistic distances (Turin is the town with the greatest extensionof public green areas of the whole of Italy).
Therefore the park - an image that represent in the collective imaginary a symbols of the paradise - can really aspire to become a protected place where to collect ourselves in meditation or to play and amuse ourselves, a place where to meet and approach cultural proposals, as it already happens in many European cities. The chairs placed in the public green areas suggest a comfortable - nearly domestic - use of the park. According to the requirements the chairs can be moved or be re-united and, effectively, they furnish the green space, not only becoming the park's image, but also the image of the city. A city that more and more aspires to play an important role in the European culture - also being one of the capitals of the contemporary arts.
A large number of young designer has participated to the competition Sedie nel parco (Seats in the park). The criteria adopted for the selection of the reached projects have been: the innovation and the formal originality, the insertion of the chair in the context, the lightness and ergonomics beyond, naturally, the eco-compatibility of materials.
The first prize has been assigned to the architect Hermann Kohlloffel - leader of a team composed by Pierluigi Gianfreda, Isabel Kohlloffel and Angela Maccianti. The choice's reasons of the jury commission was been: "the formal elegance, the ability to integrate itself in the environmental and urban context, the ability to render itself an "object-image", representative of the evolution of the city and of its international level positioning. The jury commission has also recognized in the second awarded, architect Mario Macchiorlatti Dalmas, "the characterization and pleasantness of the sign, its easy to stackablity and usability, the double configuration for adults and children, the possibility to use recyclable plastic material. The third prize has been won by Alberto Caramel, a student of Architecture.
After the distribution of prizes, to realize in some city parks the first experimental exemplars of the chairs, the Municipality of Turin has chosen the second classified project designed by Mario Macchiorlatti Dalmas.

Secretary of the Competition "Sedie nel Parco"
Municipality of Turin
Divisione Verde e Ambiente
Settore Verde Pubblico - Nuove Opere
Responsible of the Project: Mariaelisa Padovan
Via Cottolengo, 26 - 10152 Torino
e-mail: sedienelparco@comune.torino.it
Text by: 
Gabriella Masiello 

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In cooperation with:
M.Angeles Fernández Alvarez















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