The Riviera Airport, one of the oldest airports in Italy, is uniquely situated as it opens to the sea at the east and the mountains to the west, becoming a natural amphitheater. For this reason, our project’s primary mission is to blend the airport into the existing landscape, enhancing the panoramic views from the sky and the ground.
It is a project comprised of earth and sky that merges the natural and anthropic landscapes to establish a balance between the topography of the valley and the river park, the airport infrastructure and the Villanova urban area. The airport’s exemplary site guarantees this natural continuity between earth and sky; its boundaries visually blend into the surrounding landscape.
Everything seems to be “already there since forever”. It is this sense of permanence, the “as found” that guided the design process from its conception, tracing this ancient territory defined by both landscape and aviation, between earth and sky.
But Riviera Airport is much more than an airport. Inspired by the vision of Clemens Toussaint, it is a place for art. The complex will enrich the usual airport offering by providing indoor and outdoor spaces for showcasing permanent and temporary exhibitions as well as performances. It will be not only a space for transportation from which one arrives or departs but also a place for contemplation.
The design for the new complex of the Riviera Airport extends over the existing runway East-West oriented to a total length of 1,629m. The new airport facilities are aligned along the entryway North-South oriented, combining the new terminal (4,000sqm), the hotel (3,700mq) and the offices (3,000mq).
Today, a century after the birth of Albenga Villanova Airport and the Futurist Manifesto by Marinetti celebrating the idea of speed and aviation, we propose a new concept of an airport, which we believe is part of a pre-existing natural energetic flow that is manifested and perceived by the change of natural phenomena. As a result, space and time will coincide in a new synthesis between architecture and landscape, man and environment.