On Friday, February 10, Roger Williams Architecture students in Studio 416, together with Professor Paolo Di Nardo, Arch. Carlo Achilli and assistants to the course Arch. Daniela Sinicropi and Dott. Stefano Corazzini, went to Castiglione della Pescaia on a visit organized together with the town hall. When the group arrived, the Councillor for Culture, Federico Mazzarello accompanied the students through a blizzard to see Piazza Orsini – the area chosen for the students’ midterm and final projects – an important node in the urban setting of Castiglione della Pescaia. It is the ending point of the promenade overlooking the beach and the harbor, very close to the pedestrian entrance to the Medieval Castle. Dott.ssa Patrizia Guidi, director of the library of Castiglione, then gave a small introduction to the history of the area, from the Etruscans, up to the re-discovery of the ancient “lost” Etruscan town of Vetulonia in the 1800s. On April 24 the students will present their projects, in Castiglione town hall, in an architecture exhibit entitled “The Shaping of Urban Space: Castiglione della Pescaia”. The best projects will be selected and published in the architectural magazine AND.

Carlo Achilli, Ph.D.
Professor of Architecture at ISI Florence