A city-walk given over exclusively to the Exhibition Centre district: a stroll among the soaring Fiera District Towers, as well as the other important buildings, concluding with a visit to the famous L’Esprit Nouveau Pavillion by Le Corbusier. “The vertical city within a city” is how the Japanese architect Kenzo Tange described his project to develop the northern part of Bologna in the 1970s.
The whole area known today as Fiera di Bologna (Bologna Exhibition Centre) is in fact the focal point of a much larger modernisation project that began in the mid-60s, which, though only partly completed, has bequeathed the city some important examples of contemporary architecture.
Today, the area is not only a business and regional government centre, but is also a true city within the city, and all designed according to the new ideas of urban space and society expressed by Le Coubusier.
All the “L’Esprit Nouveau” of the project can be seen on the facades of the futuristic edifices of the Fiera District, in the unusual spaces of the Commodities Exchange, and the buildings given over to culture (Ex Gam, Congress Centre and Cultural Centre). Yet, it is inside the Pavillion of the same name where the true Esprit Nouveau is expressed, where this emblem of Modernism is truly felt and provides a link between Le Corbusier and Kenzo.