Demetrio Canevari Palace in Via Lomellini, Genoa

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• Canevari Palace in Via Lomellini - Entrance hall
• Canevari Palace in Via Lomellini - Hall
• Canevari Palace in Via Lomellini - Court
• Canevari Palace in Via Lomellini - Hall
• Canevari Palace in Via Lomellini - Hall
• Canevari Palace in Via Lomellini - Stairs
• Canevari Palace in Via Lomellini - Stairs
• Canevari Palace in Via Lomellini - Stairs
• Canevari Palace in Via Lomellini - Second piano nobile
• Canevari Palace in Via Lomellini - Second piano nobile loggia
• Canevari Palace in Via Lomellini - Second piano nobile loggia
• Canevari Palace in Via Lomellini - Second piano nobile loggia
• Canevari Palace in Via Lomellini - Second piano nobile loggia
• Canevari Palace in Via Lomellini - Second piano nobile hall
• Canevari Palace in Via Lomellini - Second piano nobile hall
• Canevari Palace in Via Lomellini - Second piano nobile hall
• Canevari Palace in Via Lomellini - Courtyard
• Canevari Palace in Via Lomellini - Courtyard
• Canevari Palace in Via Lomellini - Rear elevation
• Canevari Palace in Via Lomellini - Rear elevation
• Canevari Palace - ARTE Design - First piano nobile plan
• Canevari Palace - Variation - First piano nobile plan
• Canevari Palace - ARTE Design - Roof plan
• Canevari Palace - Variation - Roof plan
• Canevari Palace - ARTE Design - Rear elevation
• Canevari Palace - Variation - Rear elevation
• Canevari Palace - ARTE Design - Section
• Canevari Palace - Variation - Section

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The project regards the restoration of the monument body and the rebuilding of the wings destroyed by the war of one of the most significant seventeenth-century Palaces, facing via Lomellini - the Canevari Palace, built by Architect Matteo Lagomaggiore better known for his role as “Master builder” concerning Palazzo Rosso in Strada Nuova. It regards also the restoration of one of the most degraded corners in the old Centre of Genoa: the “piazzetta” at the back, limited by the palace, vico Untoria and Vico dei Fregoso, “urban void“ created by the 1943 bombings and a further on degraded by unfinished rebuilding in the years of the second post-war period.
The Canevari palace was built in the second half of the seventeenth century according to the devise of Demetrio Canevari (1559-1625) by which he ordered the institution of a Grant for welfare purposes, leaving to his descendants the task of building a house where to keep also his rich book collection (the information on the palace is drawn from documents kept in the Private Archives of the Canevari Grant).
In 1675 an area was bought, facing via Lomellini, called “Isola di Fossatello”: this area was already built all over, and the interventions to transform contiguous buildings into a unitary architecture organism, on axial plant with a court with galleries at the centre, heavily conditioned by the pre-existing, lasted until 1687, but for some minor interventions thereafter (in 1797 two small shops were open in this side abutments of the entrance porch, which was then reduced to today’s dimensions). As a consequence of the bombings, which caused the collapse of several rooms of the palace and the complete destruction of the two terrace houses of five storeys plus the ground floor each, enclosed in the back of the building (the last residue of the tissue preceding the 17th Century intervention) the area was cleared of those ruins in obeyance to the 1951 City Council ordinance and the “piazzetta” so created, as well as the Canevary palace, where included in the Variant of the Restoration Plan, n.5 vico Untoria-vico Fregoso, consented to on the 30th of December 1954. On the 28th of April 1959 the Opera Pia presented a restoration plan which was passed in 1960 but has only partially been carried out so far.
This project has a double purpose: in the first place, to return the Canevari palace to the complete architectural dignity adeguate in its functions to today’s demands, saving it from an unavoidable progressive decay by rebuilding part of its destroyed volumes and the rearranging of its back. Secondly, it aims at transforming the “urban void” at the back from car-cemetery and receptacle of rubbish into a real live urban space, appropriately qualified and fitted up. In consideration of this second purpose, the project provides in fact that the residual area at the back of the restored building may be arranged as public pedestrian square.
As for Palazzo Canevari itself, two are the sorts of problems that this project must face: on one hand, the main body of the building, still intact in its volume but badly degraded, requires a careful intervention of restoration and recovery, by the removal of all superfectations (like the stopping up of windows, even those facing Via Lomellini, false ceilings to hide interior vaults, particularly on the “piano nobile”, garrets, and so on) and, as a whole, a better distribution of the spaces inside; on the other hand, to complete and rationalize the architecture organism makes it necessary to restore part of the destroyed volumes, after pulling down the constructions partially carried out according to a post-war rebuilding plan, and on their own sediments.
In fact, only by completing the two wings and realizing a second stair-lift body is it possible to eliminate two of the main degrading elements: the outer lift (in the court-yard, by now reduced to “cavedio” but deserving to be restored to its old magnificence by opening anew the galleries of the two piani nobili) and the overhanging stair-case which from an intermediate lauding of the grand stair-case leans out over the court-yard to connect the garret, not to be reached otherwise.
The new vertical distribution body, besides closing the system of the whole space organism, centred on the axis entrance-hall-court, will have to be such as to grant a maximum of transparency between the inner court and the public space at the back, with an architectural solution based on the experience of other similar realizations in the historic Genoese architecture (as, for example, the faces in glass and iron of the two heads of Galleria Mazzini).
The volumes so rebuilt, apart from the rooms on the ground floor and of the first mezzanine, destined to house the back hall and the annexed service premises for private use, will mostly be reserved for small apartments, in prevision of a possible destination to lodgings for students, served by the new vertical distribution system to be reached either through the central court or directly from outside, by the new back entrance and therefore autonomous from the functional units existing in the main body of the building. The latter will keep its character mainly commercial-tertiary (but for its destination to the services for one or both piani nobili in case they should be used as study-halls in connection with the programme for a university residence in the old centre) while keeping a limited number of residential functions mainly concentrated on the garret floor.
The complete recovery of the two piani nobili, utterly respectful of their original architectural characters, will also permit to destine these rooms to activities more suitable to the “monumental” value of the palace, protected by a bond according to the law 1.089/39. In particular, in case of a possible destination of the volumes rebuilt to university residence, on the two piani nobili it will be possible to locate service functions of general interest for the residence itself (study-halls, meeting-halls, and so on).