PNRR: historical parks and gardens

RESTORATION AND ENHANCEMENT PROJECT OF THE PARK AT FONDAZIONE PALAZZO CORONINI CRONBERG ONLUS

The Fondazione Palazzo Coronini Cronberg, a non-profit organization, has secured a grant of €1,742,000 for the “Restoration and Enhancement of the Foundation’s Park” project, as part of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNNR), Mission 1 – Digitalization, Innovation, Competitiveness, and Culture, Component 3 – Culture 4.0, Measure 2 “Regeneration of small cultural sites, including cultural, religious, and rural heritage,” Investment 2.3: “Programs to enhance the identity of places: historical parks and gardens,” funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU.

The refurbishment and restoration project aims to recover the original characteristics of the Mediterranean and landscape garden, identified through extensive historical and documentary research.

Priority interventions will therefore focus on the plant component, including the removal of invasive and dangerous vegetation, clearing of key viewpoints, and reintroduction of Mediterranean species that once defined the distinctive traits of the Coronini Cronberg Park.

Simultaneously, measures will be implemented to enhance the park’s usability, such as cleaning and restoring pathways, architectural artifacts, embankments, and retaining walls, and upgrading lighting and signage with innovative and inclusive interactive tools and routes.

PLANNED INTERVENTIONS

The objectives of the project, devised by a temporary association of professionals led by architect Giulio Valentini, along with architects Mina Fiore, Antonio Stampanato, Ilenia Zimoil, and industrial expert Maria Grazia Wilfinger, are to regenerate and upgrade the park by elevating its management, maintenance, safety, and hospitality standards, ensuring its optimal preservation over time; to strengthen the park’s identity, enhancing its landscape quality and creating new cultural and touristic uses, thus contributing to the economic development of the region and employment, with special focus on youth employment; to support the environmental values selected as guidelines by the NRRP, promoting functions with direct and positive environmental impacts, such as reducing environmental pollution, regulating microclimate, generating oxygen, and protecting biodiversity, and helping, with the intrinsic features of the park and the educational activities conducted there, to spread renewed environmental and landscape awareness.

These interventions will allow the park to reopen to the public and host cultural, artistic, educational, and gastronomic events.

The work will also include various restoration efforts on the perimeter walls and other structures, modifications to some pathways within the park to make them accessible to people with disabilities, new installations for water collection and dispersal, and the placement of photovoltaic panels, safety elements near the rock garden slopes, and other safety features.

The pool area will be completely requalified, transformed into a cistern for storing rainwater for use in new irrigation systems, and covered with grass, making the area safer and much more versatile and usable. Access to the Pool Court will be via a new staircase at the site of the old Via della Scala steps, and two new paths will lead to the lower part of the park from the existing entrances on Via della Scala and Via Brass.

The area of the old Corno Stream bed will be equipped with mostly underground facilities to enable the performance of shows, while another area will be dedicated to outdoor educational activities.

TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATIONS

The project not only focuses on the physical restoration of the park but also looks to the future, offering a modern approach to the visitor experience, with innovative multimedia solutions for the enjoyment and enhancement of the Coronini Cronberg Park.

Inside the Palace, a Virtual Reality Corner will be set up with six VR stations, an emotional corner that offers visitors a digital immersion into the beauty and history of the Park and the Palace, and an interactive multimedia station that allows exploring the history and evolution of the Park and Palace through a 3D model and a temporal navigation system.

The website will be completely revamped, including a section for booking visits and an online ticketing system, and a mobile app will be launched, offering users various thematic routes within the Park and Palace, a virtual tour, augmented reality tools, detailed informational panels, and interactive content, available in Italian, English, and Slovenian.

All these tools involve diversified approaches based on different user profiles and pathways accessible to people with visual and hearing disabilities. Tactile maps and braille plaques will also be installed in the park to enhance the experience for people with disabilities.

In the Virtual Reality Corner, a Sense station will be installed, a tiflodidactic model aimed at the learning of visually impaired individuals, allowing them to physically touch a bas-relief reproduction of the Park, equipped with special sensors that activate audio contributions in the room. The Sense technology provides a multisensory discovery experience that is inclusive and extends to the visually impaired audience who cannot use VR technology. The model combines tactile perception with the added value of narration. The special sensors used activate the content with simple contact with the surface; hands are free to move and explore the model independently, without intermediaries that might “alter” the cognitive and relational experience.

DURING THE WORK THE PARK WILL BE CLOSED TO THE PUBLIC.