Client: Palermo Port Authority
Location: Palermo, Italy
Area: –
Year: 2010
Program: refurbishment of the two unloading cranes located in the port of Palermo
Tasks: Concept (competition)
Credits: Images © 3C+t Capolei Cavalli Architetti Associati

The strategy proposed for the refurbishment of the two unloading cranes is to diversify the image that the Palermo Port Authority suggests when, with the approval of the new PRP, the project area will change its destination, passing from an area intended for freight docking and docking of merchant boats in a tourist port for the mooring of private boats. No longer an image linked only to port activity but also to tourism through the creation of elements with a strong lure.
With this in mind, two different functions are proposed that can renew and liven up the Authority’s image, moving it away from its original vocation: a luxury hotel for the North Crane and an exhibition space for contemporary art (the headquarters of the OPA – Palermo Observatory for Art) for the South Crane, guaranteeing a new economic income to the Port Authority with the first, and a new cultural appeal with the second.
The positioning of the two cranes has been programmed according to their different uses, the centers of gravity and the areas of influence that these must have within the port area in order to be perfectly integrated into its complex system of relationships, both internal and with the urban space. They were therefore positioned by rhythmically balancing their presence on the quay with respect to all the elements that complete the system, to its extension to the East and West and to the entire tourist port area.