Tartini Square

A massive rib of rocks growing out of the sea and the sand bank beyond formed the building base for the ancient trade and fishing town of Piran within the Venetian territorial zone. The tiny old harbour basin is deeply emerged in the town's corporeal substance. It had long ago been filled and had been replaced by larger harbor in the area of the sand bar. Small and larger buildings surround the square in a rther unorganized fashion and, with their main facades, define the space. Podrecca gives the square a dominating center with an eliptical surface slightly curved in two planes, which is inscribed in the irregula polygonal run of the old harbour basin. The strong automonous shape becomes a central public space in the old town center. He placed the historic Tartini monument into a focal point of the ellipse. The central point was to be marked by the bronze relief of a compas dial. Stone benches and columns carrying the lighting fixtures surround the surface of the square, whose harmonic relationship with the framing environment leaves a wide zone in front of the adjoining houses and palazzi. This was a place originally reserved for the market and for the repair shops of the fishermen. Today, it is a parking lot. The focus of attention on an ideal form, reaching far beyond a mechanical memory of the original appearance, provides this public space with an unmatchable condensation of elements creating a unique identity.