Connecting the new to the past: The Color-Material-Finish design approach applied to the Fortezza da Basso

This article presents the Color-Material-Finish (CMF) project developed for the renovation of Fortezza da Basso in Florence, Italy. Fortezza da Basso—a large, fortified complex consisting of old and new buildings—is the main venue in Tuscany for international exhibitions and cultural activities. In 2010, the Municipality of Florence started its restoration, which is still ongoing. The goal is to renovate the Renaissance parts of the fortress and replace the 20th-century pavilions with environmentally sustainable buildings, harmonically integrated in the context. The renovation started with a project aimed at assessing the preservation status of the fortress. In 2016, the Municipality of Florence developed a body of design rules, the “Fortezza System,” dedicated to the design of new buildings within the fortress. A key role was assigned to CMF design: at first, to identify the fortress CMF identity; then, to develop CMF prescriptions to harmonically integrate the new constructions with the historic parts. The CMF approach required for such an ambitious plan also had to be flexible and with wide design margins to allow architects experiment innovative CMF languages. Such conflicting needs were met by designing a CMF approach based on Chromatic Areas, that is, usable continuous areas in the color space rather than on color charts based on lists of allowed historical colors. The article shows how the developed CMF approach can contribute to the full preservation of the Fortezza historical identity and at the same time increase the autonomy of architects in their material and color choices.