Piazza del Vento is a collective installation stemming from an idea shared with Renzo Piano to celebrate Genoa’s renewed urban rituality by the sea. This project is a legacy of the Salone Nautico Boat Show, giving back to the people of Genoa a new public space at the entrance of the former Fair area. Conceived as a temporary event for the 57th Salone Nautico, Piazza del Vento has since become a permanent installation.
At the entrance of the port, where the great urban axis of Viale Brigate Partigiane meets the sea, we envisioned a field of 57 masts made of red maple wood and white steel, 12 meters high and interconnected with fabric shrouds and Dacron sails. Numerous Windex wind direction indicators, made from multicolored spinnaker fabrics, are placed atop the masts, signaling both the direction and intensity of the wind. Some of the masts support two-seat swings positioned under the sails, offering views toward the sea.
Piazza del Vento is also a collective artwork, realized with the participation of musician Roberto Pugliese alongside Enter Studio and Matteo Orlandi, who created the “Melodie Mediterranee” sound field played by the wind. A system of brass canes of varying lengths with internal wooden clappers, arranged according to a precise spatial pattern among the masts, translates the sounds of the mare nostrum into chords drawn from the Mediterranean musical scale, brought to life by the breeze.
The result of a collaboration between OBR and Artkademy, Piazza del Vento also involved poet and street artist Ivan Tresoldi, who created the performance A.mare together with visitors of the Salone Nautico Boat Fair, producing the anamorphosis “He who throws seeds into the wind will make the sky blossom.”
Piazza del Vento was dismantled in 2021 to allow for the construction of the Levante Waterfront and later repositioned on the site of the future Casa Vela, evoking the large flags of the 1970s Fair that once waved in the tramontana wind, which still sweeps along the great urban axis of Viale Brigate Partigiane.