Both the property side facing the city port and the street side to “Am Mittelhafen” require representative façades. Therefor a building in the north-south axis is required, which fills the property over the entire length. The two narrow views speak a suitably dignified language – to the waterfront through an invigorating silhouette that adds a building with personality to the row of existing office buildings. The opposite side facing the street is emphasized by an expressive façade – in contrast to the buildings in the immediate vicinity, which do not have such a concise addresses. This gives the quarter a much needed “urban flair”.

On Thursday 16 July 2009 the mayor and international jury pronounced BOLLES+WILSON winner of the competition for the new Korça City Centre Masterplan. The international two-stage competition was decided in favour of the Muenster based office for its concept of “Scenographic Urbanism”, a choreographing of new buildings and public spaces which pays close attention to the existing grains and potentials of this small but spatially complex city.

Surrounded by dramatic mountains and a wide arcadian valley Korça focuses a region of 360,000 inhabitants. Its urbane morphology reflects the wealth and ambitions of returning emigrants as well as historically strong trade relations with central Europe. Many Novecento and Art Nouveau villas are now restored, many are still crumbling. The aim of the competition was to find a clear concept, which integrates a traffic and pedestrian rational with the qualitative and development needs of the city – a commercial strategy, administrative facilities and residential development. The competition brief also emphasised that the scale of the new Korça should be respectful and appropriate to the historic scale.

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BOLLES+WILSON identified five zones for the revitalisation of the 197,000 sqm city centre. Each zone possessing its own unique character, together they add up to a network of urbane public spaces. At one end of the centre the Cathedral of ‘Christus Resurrection’ anchors, at the other end a Commercial Anchor is added. These are connected by the Boulevard Shen Gjergji – now transformed into a ‘Cultural Promenade’. Reduction in expansive communist road widths allows an extension of the Cathedral Square. This square is planned three steps above the street and framed by café pergolas, an optical filter between traffic and event space. A large stage left of the cathedral and a smaller stage to the right facilitate a wide variety of events. Curved paving stripes echo the Cathedral geometry and serve to discipline market stands.

New figure on the Korça skyline and counterpoint to the Cathedral, a “Vertical Mall” occupies and marshals the parade-ground scaled Theatre Square. A new commercial strip extends from here to the Bazaar via new shopping/housing blocks and a new Bus Station Roof – a Farmers-market platform.

This – the second of the five zones – creates a new commercial hub in downtown Korça.

The third zone is rescripted as a ‘Cultural promenade’, a semi-pedestrian connection between Cathedral and downtown Mall. Here a number of significant buildings such as the ‘Education Museum’ are extended out into the tree-lined, shady and café-filled Promenade as a carpet-like patterned paving, a choreographed sequence of ‘Patterned Squares – Urban Living Rooms’.

The fourth zone revitalises a villa zone with carefully placed new development. In order not to overwhelm the delicate historic scale of Korça a ‘Patchwork Strategy’ is invented – new buildings are paired with restored existing villas to form ‘Development Islands’ (shared economic benefit) and thereby create a network of active block-internal passages.

The final zone of the Masterplan is the ‘Enlarged Park’ (‘green heart’). Here a new triangular-block frames the park edge and by the sale of public land for private development finances the upgrading of the park itself.

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Related project:
Red Bar in the Sky, Theatre Square, Korça, 2014

MONTELUCE MASTERPLAN

On 12th sept. 2006 the office of Bolles+Wilson was awarded the first prize in the International Design Competition for Monteluce in Perugia.

The jury lead by Axel Sowa, director of “Architecture d’ aujourd’hui” commended the winning entry for its respect and sensitivity to the scale of Monteluce, its morphological compatibility with the historic structure of Perugia and its sympathetic relationship to the surrounding Umbrian landscape.

The Convento delle Clarisse of S. Maria di Monteluce originating in 1218 stands outside the Etruscan walls of Perugia, an outpost protecting one of the main access roads. Expansion outside the medieval walls reached Monteluce at the end of the nineteenth century. A concurrent appropriation of religious assets by the State instigated the opening of a gate to the Piazza Monteluce and between 1910 and 1923 the construction in the monastery garden of a series of hospital pavilions.

The Competition Program developed in close co-operation with the Commune di Perugia called for a total of 65,000 sqm – 43% of which is student and private housing and 25% subsidised housing. The new urban Quartier is networked in terms of a continuity of urban spaces and a rich programmatic mix including a maximum of 10% retail and 5% office use as well as hotel and conference facilities, local health offices, kindergarten and a new public park.

The Bolles+Wilson design developed and presented in 1:500 model format rejects authoritative geometry in favour of a sequencing of localised responses tailored to the dramatic topology and framed views out and across the luxurious Umbrian landscape. For economy and continuity many new structures occupy the footprint of redundant hospital buildings, a strategy that preserves the extensive terraced system of retaining walls and protected trees.

Bolles+Wilson describe their scheme as Urban Choreography, a sequence of public spaces unfolding from the S.Maria di Monteluce church in the west to the new Park d’Este. A first Piazza is framed by the Monestry portico and the one remaining Hospital Pavilion (Public Health Offices). To the north are offices and a submerged supermarket. To the south a Hotel and Conference Pavilion frame the view in the direction of Assisi. A second Conical Piazza is enclosed by a row of student housing buildings to the north and an opposing commercial/ restaurant Acropolis. Here deck- like upper terraces offer spectacular views of the historic skyline and Umbrian landscape.

MONTELUCE QUATTRO

The core of the new urban quarter became the (architectural) responsibility of BOLLES+WILSON (see siteplan). In realization it follows very closely the competition proposal of two Piazzas on the crest of the hill/ridge, underneath these two levels of carparking ensure car free public spaces (500 cars disappear underground). The strategic placement of these two Piazzas follows the typical Perugian trope of leaving one side of a space open for cooling winds and views out across the sensuous and gently rolling Umbrian landscape (views across the valley to Assisi).

The strategy of two piazzas introduces a spatial sequence resulting from the integration of the historic monastery and the12^th century chapel – their arched entrance portal announces the entry to the first new Piazza, now named Piazza Cecilia Coppoli (1426-1500, poetess and humanist) and opened on 19^th March 2015 by Catiusca Marini – President of the Region of Umbria. Signora Marini described the Monteluce spaces as ‘an investment in the culture of the city, also in the public patrimony of Perugia, an exemplary work and graceful urban transformation, one that experiments with a new contemporary urban architecture.’

The original BOLLES+WILSON 2016 Masterplan for the center of Korça identified the Ligor Rembeci Quarter as a zone for careful insertion of new buildings in symbiosis with existing stone villas – this strategy – activating a block interior accessed by a network of passages – is now emerging with the recently completed Serenity Villas.