Lugano sets the foundations for the city of the future

The city of Lugano looks to the future, with a thirty-year perspective. It does so by challenging everything, in as participatory a manner as possible. This emerges from the decision to deepen the planning vision of the Studio Paola Viganò of Milan, that proposes a Master Plan for the City based on transformation: ecological, cultural, urban planning. An ambitious and radical plan, proposing to go beyond the concept of the district, to rethink public transport in its entirety, to demolish the central part of the Palazzo dei Congressi.

These are only ideas, for now. Suggestions that the City - and this is also a fundamental one - would like to discuss with as many people as possible: «It’s the beginning of the phase in which everyone will have their say - said the municipal councilor Filippo Lombardi last night -. We need a participating population: support us, we don’t want to lower this vision from above».

Definition and purpose

Before getting to the heart of the matter, it is appropriate to explain what the Municipal Master Plan (PDcom) is and where we stand in its implementation. The PDcom is a strategic and programmatic tool that will determine the territorial and urban development of the city for the next thirty years.

While on the one hand it fosters the vision of the future Lugano, it also presents concrete measures, flanking the Financial Plan and the Development Lines with which the City is endowed. The PDcom will be the basis for the various Regulatory Plans that today make up the City. In order to draw up the PDcom, a competition was published by Lugano two years ago and it was recently concluded with the assignment to Studio Paola Viganò of the mandate to elaborate it, beginning with the vision we are presenting here. A vision that will now have to be consolidated and implemented with the recommendations of the College of Experts and the opinions of the population. In this sense, several public evenings have already been announced.

Four images

Let’s look at the vision of Studio Viganò, the leader of an inter-disciplinary group that includes a dozen or so companies and many professionals in various fields (planning, urban design, landscape planning, mobility and logistics, law, macroeconomics). Let’s start with the four «Images», 4 points of view on the city area. Perhaps the first image is the most theoretical: Lugano as a small global city. Architect Paola Viganò explains it as follows: «Lugano has an international image larger than it is, and this is a resource». The objective is to maintain this image, making the city more habitable, developing the training and research center and re-evaluating the cultural and symbolic role of the old town and the lake.

There is also the Lugano city-landscape image, which aims to strengthen the relationship between the city and its surroundings. For example, recovering biodiversity, making the shores multifunctional and usable, restoring the ecological network and the valley floor. There is also Lugano, a resilient city-territory, which focuses on the fight against climate change: a CO2-neutral budget, a short chain of forest management, the reduction of heat islands, the sparing use of land.

Beyond the districts

Finally, there is Lugano, a city of towns and neighborhoods: perhaps the most innovative of the four compared to what is already there. Viganò defines it as follows: «To make a group of entities become an articulated city». It is a vision that goes beyond the current concept of district and proposes to divide the territory into nine «Constellations» on the basis of urban morphological, social and landscape characteristics. Reuniting uniqueness, in other words. The Ronchi Constellation, for example, is composed of Dino, Sonvico, Cadro and Villa Luganese. From the point of view of those who live there, it means that within each constellation there will be a Civic Center, which is a term that brings together all the services (public transport, shops, schools, nurseries, pharmacies, co-working spaces) needed to really live the place where you live. To avoid being dependent on the city center.

Strategic Spaces

This leads us to the concept of «Strategic Spaces», since the creation of a (regional?) Camoghè Park is one of them. They are, Viganò explains, «places where we imagine specific interventions that will lead to Lugano with something that is not there today». There are five, in addition to the above-mentioned Camoghè: the re-design of the Pian Scairolo, with the inclusion of a new public transport line and a generous bike path; the implementation of the aforementioned Civic Centers to reinforce living in the nuclei; the organization of a set of spaces devoted to research, greenery and sports along the Cassarate, up to the Piano della Stampa; making the lake landscape accessible and multifunctional, consolidating and reconnecting the public space between the center and the lake (which implies, among other things, the pedestrianization of the lakefront and the partial demolition of the PalaCongressi, see box on the side); and the redevelopment of the city of the Plain, with - among other things - an important revision of public transport based on four lines serving the entire territory: two «Transversal» (south and north) and two «Pedemontane» (east and west).

From a territorial point of view, instead, the Constellations will have their own functionality. The one at Ronchi, for example, is imagined as the gateway to the Camoghè Park.

The possible future of PalaCongressi

But not only the general picture: the Viganò studio has not wavered in proposing its vision also on single projects or buildings in Lugano to initiate the debate. For example, the Palazzo dei Congressi, which, on the 2050 horizon, is imagined to be remodeled. How? By eliminating the central part in order to filter the Ciani Park towards the street and extend the lakefront. Looking at it from the front, the right side of the PalaCongressi could become a work space or non-traditional housing, while the left side, with its auditorium, could continue to be linked to the world of entertainment.

Discussions begin

This is the vision of «Lugano 2050», which will be exhibited from tomorrow at Villa Saroli (then Thursday-Saturday from 12 to 17, until April 30) along with the other two finalist projects. Vision that will be deepened shortly with evenings dedicated to the four «Images». Then there will be others that will descend into the Constellations. A dedicated website has also been set up: www.pdcomlugano.ch. «This is a unique opportunity to design our city together,« said Mayor Michele Foletti.