Sede della Direzione Provinciale delle Poste e Telegrafi di Firenze
Giovanni Michelucci was tasked with designing a new headquarters for the Province of Florence's Post and Telegraph office in the late 1950's. The site chosen for the project was an empty lot in the Santa Croce neighborhood, deep in the heart of the historical city center. This land, which had been cleared by Mussolini's fascist government in the 1930's presented a unique challenge and opportunity for an architect as concerned with the urban condition as Michelucci.
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Michelucci's interest in urban design and the urban lifestyle, as well as the long history of urban change and growth in the city of Florence, informed his design for the post and telegraph office. He believed that buildings in the city center should reflect the long and proud history of the city, but should be more than a mere mimicry of historical forms and style and should acknowledge the ever changing conditions and needs of the urban area.
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Though much altered since its completion in 1967, the post and telegraph office still exhibit many of the
History of the Post Office
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The land chosen in 1959 for the new headquarters of Florence's post and telegraph offices by Mayor Giorgio La Pira had sat empty for nearly three decades. Once densely built residential blocks, the land was cleared in the 1930's as part of an urban renewal scheme by fascist officials. The outbreak of WWII soon after the site's demolition halted any attempts at new construction and left a void in the dense heart of the old city.
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Michelucci reconized that this commission for a public post-office, private offices for postal and telegraph officials, and two private apartments for executives, was a rare opportunity to introduce contemporary architecture into the old urban fabric. The site, at a crossroads of three of the city's historic street grids, inspired Michelucci to study, analyze, and learn from the area's historic character, but also to inject contemorary aestetics and urban design notions into the old city.
Formal Overview - Facades
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Michelucci's careful study of the historic development of Florence informed his design for the facades of the post and telegraph office. Sitting at the intersection of three of the city's historic street grids, the facades reference the chaotic meeting of the various stages of the city's development.
The ground floor's facade aligns with two of the city's main streets, Via Giuseppe Verdi and Via Pietrapiana, one a remnant of the orginal Roman square grid that originally defined the city, the other an eighteenth century addition by planner Giuseppe Poggi. The upper floors, which appear to randomly and choatically jut out of the facade, reference no longer existing roads from the medieval era, when streets were laid out haphazardly and organically.
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In this unique and subtle way Micheulcci is able to reference and honor the rich and diverse history of the Florence. He avoids mere historical mimicry, but instead, through his indepth research into the history of the city, finds a way to blend ancient and modern Florence in the post and telegraph office.
Formal Overview - Plan
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Taking cues from the historic structures surrounding the site, Michelucci chose to organize his sturcture around a central courtyard, allowing for greater access to light, and creating a hidden, unobstructive space to load and unload the city's mail.
On the second floor, on the building's south side, facing the quiet, narrow Via dell'Ulivo sits the two apartments originally meant for post office executives. This placement allows for plenty of natural, southern light to enter the living space, and shields them from the noise and crowds of the busier streets lining the building's other facades.
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On the ground floor, facing Via Pietrapiana and orginally open to the double-height main lobby, runs an "interior street" that serves a public gathering space for the neighborhood. The two-storied main lobby is open to both this interior, public walkway and the building's courtyard, giving it access to plenty of light from both directions and connecting it visually and audibly to the surrounding city.
Formal Overview - Section​
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By positioning the shorter elements of the building along the lot's southern edge, Michelucci gives access to natural southern light to all parts of the building. This scheme also positons the larger, more imposing and architecturally complex building facades along main, heavily trafficked streets where they will have the greatest visual impact.
In this section we also see Michelucci's attempts to visually and spacially connect the post and telegraph office's public spaces to the surrounding streets. Though now clad in wood, this section drawing shows that the large piers that support the lobby's roof and seperate it from the long public walkway were meant to be clad in the same rough stone used on the building's exterior facade. This effectively pulls the facade inside and blurs the distinction between outside and in, inviting city residents into the building's public spaces and giving the building a greater prominence in public life.
Materiality
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Though Michelucci's philosophy at the time deemed it necessary to relate a building's fabric to its surrounding buildings, streets, and heritage the majority of the surrounding buildings were either demolished during Mussolini's renewal program for the Santa Croce Quarter or otherwise cheap, fast-rise postwar office or housing developments. In this sense the materiality of the facade make reference more generally to the Florentine Palazzo, particularly in the diminishing rustication that runs vertically up the facades (whereas the typical Florentine palazzo uses only stone for this, Michelucci integrates concrete, brass, and various types of stone to show the increasing refinement).
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Floor
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The building's terra-cotta floor patterns mimic those of the public spaces and channels outside of the building. The main ambulatory, which acts as an extension of the exterior sidewalk to the interior of the building, features in terra-cotta tile the same herringbone pattern seen in many streets and pedestrian walks and thereby implies, both by this association and by the rhythm offered by the pattern itself, the ambulatory nature of the space.
As one enters the main teller space from the entrance ambulatory, the floor pattern becomes visibly complex. Again the pattern reflects the space's social program, but as this space sees people meeting, waiting in line, and conducting business along a row of tellers, the pattern divides into a series of concentric squares, rows, and lines, creating spaces not dissimilar to the urban piazzas found nearby.
Michelucci's Urban Philosophy
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"One can say that the city itself is the collective memory of its people, and like memory it is associated with objects and places. The city is the locus of the collective memory."
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-Aldo Rossi
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Michelucci's philosophy was heavily influcenced by the ideas of his contemporary, architect and planner Aldo Rossi. Like Rossi, Michelucci believed that architects and planners must study and understand the urban context in which they were intervening before they could begin designing. He believed that architects must understand the way people throughout history have interacted with their cities and how their needs had shaped the city and the buildings within it. He recognized that cities are constantly evolving, and that the needs of their residents change, and that while architects can learn from the buildings of the past, they should not be mere mimics of past styles, but should recognize and acknowledge the nature and needs of the modern city and its inhabitants.
Interior Public Street​
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Michelucci believed that the post office should serve as more than just a place of business. He imagined the building, placed prominently at the intersection of two busy streets, as a gathering place for residents of the Santa Croce neighborhood.
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His inclusion of an "interior street" blurs the line between interior and exterior and gives the building a greater prominence in the neighborhood's public life. The interior street runs nearly the entire length of the north side of building and opens to Via Pietrapiana. A series of large, brass framed doors opening to the street allow people to move freely between the building's interior and exterior spaces. Though it's now walled in, this interior street was once fully open to the main lobby of the post office, separated only by the large, wood-clad piers. Benches line this long walkway, allowing passers-by and post office customers to sit and chat as they move throughout and past the building.
Similar Projects
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Architect's throughout history have grapled with the challenge of new construction within sensitive historic urban centers. While some have chosen to completely ignore existing context, or conversely to merely mimic historical forms, others, like Michelucci in his post and telegraph office have both looked to and referenced their cities' long and storied past, while incorporating contemporary building forms, technologies, and aesthetics.
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Turin's Borsa Valori, constructed between 1952 and 1956 is in many ways similar to the Florence post and telegraph office. Roughly contemporary, like the FPTO it is sited in the town center of a historically importatn Italian city, Turin, and it .
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Herzog & de Meuron's Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, though constructed nearly 50 years and hundreds of kilometers away
Structure and Ceiling
The urban philosophy espoused by Michelucci called for a recognition of both the city's past and present when constructing new buildings. By using concrete in contemporary ways throughout the post and telegraph office, Michelucci acknowledges Florence's status as a major modern Italian metropolis as well as a historical center. the building relies on reinforced, board formed concrete for its structural integrity. Characteristic of many of Michelucci's projects and those of other member of the Florentine School, concrete was used not only structurally, but also was left exposed to creates beautiful forms throughout the building.
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The ceiling of the double-height main lobby of the post office is made of thin, concrete parabolic arches. Forming trapezoidal frames around large windows on the lobby's south side, the arches curve as they extend outward above the lobby, coming to rest of the thick, hooked concrete polygons that lie on the large wood clad supports that separate the lobby form the building's interior pedestrian passageway.
