It was the most beautiful construction site I have ever had in all my life. Simply extraordinary.
With these words Renzo Piano, on the morning of August 3rd 2020, inaugurated the Genoa San Giorgio Bridge. A complex project, born from a tragedy, in a place where “we are all lost ourselves, two years ago, and here we find ourselves again today ". A professional adventure, but above all human, unforgettable.
This volume, edited and published by the Renzo Piano Foundation within the monographic series dedicated to Renzo Piano’s iconic projects, tells the entire path in images, from the demolition of the Morandi Bridge to today. The history of the project is chronologically reconstructed through more than 100 drawings, unpublished sketches, models and prototypes, annotations, and construction site photos. In this way the entire process is well documented, including the different design phases, the proposals then modified or abandoned in the final project and second thoughts. Renzo Piano's story especially collected in July 2020, a few weeks after the opening of the bridge, was recorded and faithfully transcribed in the volume. This book thus becomes a travel notebook that accompanies the reader in every phase of that extraordinary adventure that is the profession of designing and making buildings. Because "building is the opposite of destroying, it is creating”. And building a bridge is a gesture of peace. We should not build walls, but bridges and a lot of them”.