Il Giardino della Ciminiera
Il Giardino della Ciminiera
A new green space designed by architect and landscape designer Antonio Perazzi, transforming the courtyard into a garden, where the public can connect with nature through the trees, plants, flowers and water features.
Nature has always played a central role in the regeneration of Manifattura Tabacchi, and as such, the Giardino della Ciminiera reflects a natural process in which plants began to gradually reclaim the site when it was left abandoned following its closure, giving the city a welcoming green space and a source of relaxation and inspiration.
The creation of the garden took its lead from the history of the factory in the years when it was left empty and was slowly being reclaimed by vegetation, with all sorts of native and non-native species emerging from the concrete, pioneering plants that were able to adapt and survive in these abandoned human spaces, repopulating the Manifattura and becoming iconic representations of the principles that now guide the regeneration of the old tobacco factory.
“Gardens are made of ideas; the roots dig down into memories and allow new dreams to blossom.”
Antonio Perazzi, using memory as his reference point, has redesigned the Cortile della Ciminiera, giving it new life.
The project gives a new home to the 38 trees that were placed outside the entrance on Via delle Cascine for the God is Green festival in September 2019, which now sit alongside the vegetation that had spontaneously sprung up in the courtyard, and together with 700 new elements including shrubs, flowers and aquatic plants.
“In order to create the garden and make the space complete, we added perennial herbs from a little Tuscan nursery called Il Posto delle Margherite di Valeria Parea, because the new garden requires sophisticated, ephemeral organisms, which are naturally elegant and pleasant all year round. Euphorbia, Sage, Echinacea, Verbena, Pennisetum, to name just a few, regenerate year on year with incredible growth, and they are able to create new and unexpected architectures from this prolific generosity. At the same time, they provide a real example of a utopian society in which nature is art, and all that humans have to do to create a new landscape is let themselves be seduced by its poetry.
The plants, all of the plants, from the trees to the bushes, from long-lived vines to the smallest groundcovers, adapting to any draining surface, growing with little care and regenerating the soil, they will all play a major role in the new Manifattura Tabacchi. Nature and the quality of the environment will be central to this project, designed together with the city and with everyone who will pass through this space, who will come to love it,
The new Giardino della Ciminiera will be a perfect exercise in how mankind and nature can live side by side, walking along the same path into the landscape of the future.”
Antonio Perazzi
Milanese landscape architect, botanist and writer, with a long-held interest in botany, gardens and spontaneous landscapes, educated at the Politecnico di Milano and at Kew Royal Botanical Gardens in London. He set up Studio Antonio Perazzi in 1998 and the firm carries out public and private landscaping projects in Italy and abroad.
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