Tear down the Buoncammino wall to transform the former prison into a place of peace, open to the city, which preserves the past and thinks about the future by creating spaces for students. The “City Plan of Cagliari”, signed by the State Property Agency, the Region, the Local Health Authority, the Municipality, the University and the Port Authority, lays the foundations for a radical change in the capital through the exchange of unused properties between state bodies. A titanic undertaking, led by the director of the State Property Agency Alessandra dal Verme, which however seems to have taken the right path. There is no shortage of horizons, among these the recovery of the old military penitentiary institute inside the Livio Duce barracks, in San Bartolomeo, where the provincial command of the Carabinieri will soon be transferred, which will be converted into residential buildings.
The properties owned by the State include, in addition to Buoncammino and the Livio Duce barracks, the former Air Force Warehouses on Via Simeto, destined for the new Revenue Agency hub; the Military Hospital on Via Azuni, used by the Ministry of Defense, will also house, in a portion of it, the Stampace Carabinieri station; the former Indire Offices on Via Galassi, destined for Istat; the headquarters of the General Command of the Port Authority on Via dei Calafati, subject to energy efficiency works and the building of the District Attorney's Office on Via Dante, for which redevelopment works will be carried out.
"The Cagliari City Plan is a planning tool integrated with local authorities," explains Alessandra Dal Verme. The former Buoncammino prison is certainly the most valuable asset in the city of the state's real estate portfolio, for which a 65 million euro loan is planned. "Before financing, it is necessary to do a context analysis on this asset. It is a point of reference for Cagliari, it is a place that can become a symbol of regeneration. From a place of punishment we want to transform it into a place of inclusion, open to citizens, a place where young people can go with university residences and where there can be offices of the Public Administration, all linked by the thread of culture. We are thinking of bringing the State Archives. We want to retrace the history of the city from its roots, from its primary Punic-Phoenician settlements, to the evolution of industrial archaeology to arrive at the city of the future. The synergy between the Agency and the local institutions represents a great opportunity to support the Municipality in building a “Cagliari of traditions that opens to the future”, a city where sea, nature, history and tradition merge, creating a charm that has its roots in the landscape».
Not only public administration offices or State Archives, in the Plan of the State Property Agency. «We could assign university residences, the State Property Agency, with a law, has committed to granting state properties for this purpose, to attract young people to our cities. To this would be added a space that we will assign to the Municipality to be able to provide services to the citizen, to be able to carry out attractive functions, to open digital rooms, libraries».
Can Cagliari pursue the dream of becoming a city for students? "Yes, the rector has proposed offering "summer school" hospitality inside the former prison." Rooms in the area that was once a prison? "The area of the cells, by expanding them, is very beautiful and lends itself to the hospitality part, but we need to study well the part where to put the archives, which must be alive, lived, where the citizen can enter with exhibition spaces."
Buoncammino is a protected building. "It will be essential to work with the Superintendence, which has proven to be very available and projected towards the future development of the former prison." And here the horizons become interesting. "We would like to make large openings in the perimeter wall, if not even knock down the patrol wall to be able to create a walkway along the current wall."
What will happen to the offices and archives of the Prefecture and the Prosecutor's Office? "Everything needs to be studied, we need to find an ideal functional mix, there will not be a single destination for the former prison."
What is the status of the project for the former Air Force warehouses on Via Simeto? "Those spaces will become the headquarters of the Revenue Agency, but the beautiful thing are the terraces overlooking the salt flats and the lagoon and which will be accessible to citizens." The timing? "We are in the execution phase, the construction site, opened about seven months ago, is very active, I hope that the work will be completed within a year."
Also on the agenda is the transfer of the Provincial Command of the Carabinieri from via Nuoro to San Bartolomeo. "The work in the Livio Duce barracks is almost finished. But that's not all, we saw that inside there is a former military prison and we decided to include it in the City Plan to build residences. We are evaluating with the mayor whether to allocate them to housing for the Police Force or whether they can also be opened to other public administrations".