The monastery of Santa Corona area in Vicenza. Study for the recomposition

Vicenza is an ancient city located in the Veneto region, not far from Venice, in the north-east corner of Italy. This work specifically refers to the area around the former monastery of Santa Corona, which today hosts the local Archaeological and Naturalistic Museum. Intimately part of the historic centre of Vicenza, this area gradually lost its functional and social identity. The idea of restoring that degraded area of the city has long been the object of discussion on the part of local authorities. The monastery of Santa Corona is one of the subjects recently investigated by our students at the ‘Architectural and Urban Composition 2' course taught on the master’s degree in Architectural Engineering at the University of Padua. Students were required to present project hypotheses to guarantee innovation and continuity in the change between past and future. The history is considered an indispensable tool to know the deep reasons of the urban structure, which can be used to control the change of functional systems (political, social and economic). The monastery of Santa Corona was thought by our students as an opportunity to suggest new ways to manage the change through the reinterpretation of the lost unity of this symbolic and representative place of the city.