CENTRO PIACENTINIANO, Introduction - Ai Voice

At the beginning of the 20th century, Bergamo was changing its appearance. The city, long concentrated in the Upper Town, was beginning to experience a phase of economic and social expansion that required new, more modern and functional spaces. It was in this context that the idea emerged to create a true urban center in the lower part of the city. For this ambitious project, one of the rising names in Italian architecture of the time was called upon: Marcello Piacentini.

The project took shape starting in 1907 and developed over more than twenty years. The area chosen corresponded to the site once occupied by the Fiera di Sant’Alessandro, a large market that, since the 17th century, had attracted merchants, craftsmen, and visitors from all over Lombardy. For over two centuries, the fair was the city’s main economic and social event, animating the district each year with stalls, performances, and commercial exchanges that turned Bergamo into a lively regional meeting point. The goal of the new project was to completely redesign this area, creating a modern center.

The new district developed around a main axis leading from Viale di Porta Nuova toward the hill of the Upper Town. Along this axis, still today, are the most representative areas of the Centro Piacentiniano: the Sentierone, with its arcades and historic cafés, Piazza Vittorio Veneto, dominated by the Torre dei Caduti, and Piazza Dante. Within this layout are buildings such as the Bank of Italy, the Post Office, the Credito Italiano headquarters, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Courthouse — all sharing a sober yet monumental style.

Piacentini wanted every perspective to be designed in relation to the others: the lines of the porticoes, the height of the buildings, the symmetry of the squares, and even the choice of materials contributed to giving unity to the whole.
With the completion of the Torre dei Caduti in 1924 and the main administrative buildings by 1927, the urban center of the city shifted from the medieval historic core — the Upper Town — to modern Lower Bergamo.

An interesting fact: the project that Marcello Piacentini submitted to the 1907 competition was titled “Panorama.” It was a symbolic name that perfectly expressed his vision of the city: a place where architectural order and modernity could open, in perspective, toward the hill of Bergamo Alta, thus preserving an ideal connection between past and future.