Carlo Lococo, architect: "Industrial recovery can revive a neighborhood and its memory"

Ostiense-Marconi district in Rome. Here in the former Medici marble factory of the Medici Company on via Luigi Pierantoni, L'Opificio Italiacamp opens, a new space for culture, training and social innovation. The former marble factory, which for over two centuries served major Vatican and international clients, returns to the city thanks to an urban regeneration project worth 5 million euros that has redeveloped and restored its 2,000 square meters in total, over 800 of which are outdoors.

We asked Carlo Lococo, the architect who oversaw the redevelopment, about the link between the building recovery and the rebirth of a neighborhood that he defines as “very beautiful from a landscape point of view”: “I believe that the building recovery together with the recovery of the memory of an activity of Roman marble workers can have a great impact on the recovery of a neighborhood that can be intended for a younger and more curious public in which there are many memories of a very fascinating past. The hope is that there will be a rediscovery of this place, a desire to relive it as has happened in all European capitals”.