Florence, 15 June 2024 – Before curtains And caravan, then an abandoned place for almost 10 years, today a public garden available to all and with a new cultural and contemporary vocation. It is the new four-hectare park that takes the place of the former Michelangelo campsite, the campsite located on the slope of the hill on the left bank of the Arno just below the Iris gardenof the square and of San Miniato al Monte, which was inaugurated today in the presence of the mayor Dario Nardella and the councilors Andrea Giorgio, Cosimo Guccione and Sara Funarowith the president of the District Mirco Rufilli.
Street Levels Gallery artists also worked during the day to paint the structures of the former campsite which will become a ‘space for art’. The event, which involved around forty artists intent on a street art and graffiti jam session, will end tomorrow. “We have worked for a long time – declared the mayor Dario Nardella – for the complete regeneration of this splendid place, now transformed into a garden available to everyone within the UNESCO area of Florence. It’s a final gift to the city and I’m happy to hand it over to those who come after me.” “After years of degradation and abandonment, an enormous space is being returned to the citizens and the neighborhood – underlined the environmental councilor Giorgio -: we strongly wanted a space for everyone, not a tourist one, where one can relax and participate in cultural activities, increasingly convinced that greenery can be a new way of building sociality. This park will also be the first to have a specific cultural vocation: these days there is the Street Levels gallery crew who will be working on hundreds of square meters of walls creating works of contemporary street art. An ‘art house’ will be created here and the garden will be available to local associations for cultural events and projects. The call for tenders for the cultural space will soon open and the garden will also be a venue for the Estate Fiorentina”.
“An important inauguration – added councilor Funaro – which allows us to reconnect a crucial piece of the city with other gardens and green areas in the area. I would like, given its proximity to San Miniato al Monte, for this park to have a call for peace given that the Abbey itself was recently the scene of some initiatives related to peace and dialogue”. Until 2015, there was a campsite in the area a stone’s throw from the center between Viale Michelangelo, Via dei Bastioni, Via di San Miniato al Monte and the Iris garden. Then the total closure of the space. The redevelopment intervention, carried out by the Environment Management and the Bellesi Giuntoli studio, for a total of 450 thousand euros, focused on improving the accessibility of the place and making the entire area safe. Many existing routes, both vehicular and pedestrian, followed a logic linked to the functionality of the campsite and were recovered as far as possible by integrating them with the new routes for a new design that is defined and coherent with the existing landscape. A new external pedestrian path in stabilized earth has been created following a route that starts from the square in front of the Iris Garden car park and, following the border of the park, reaches a newly built access gate in its upper part. From this stretch the view opens onto Florence and the Fiesole hill, framed by a telescope inserted in a “green curtain” which frames the main axis of the Park and the skyline of some elements of the historic centre. As regards the interventions on the greenery, all the trees present were checked, all the plants and areas invaded by brambles were cleaned, and the containment and reforming of the existing hedges were carried out. The great heritage of the park, consisting of around 700 olive trees, has been preserved. For outdoor rest, picnic areas and seats have been added along the main paths of the park, as well as a small area for playing football for the little ones, with wooden goals. The rainwater collection and removal system has been redeveloped: a series of grates and drains convey the water into an underground pipe which, through underground drainage, allows for better infiltration into the ground and a delay in the flow to the disposal network. Two “rain gardens” have also been created which have the function, in the event of heavy rainfall, of temporarily collecting rainwater and then slowly releasing it.
The intervention also included the construction of the new LED lighting system for a further 90,000 euros carried out by Florence Smart. The garden has been included in the list of summer spaces (from July to October 2024) put up for tender for the creation of an artistic, cultural and recreational programme.
