scuola musicale, auditorium, biblioteca

The new civic hub of San Giovanni Teatino (Chieti, Italy), with a music school, auditorium, library and children's play centre, won second prize in a 2023 competition.

The site is a short walk from piazza San Rocco, where the church and portico designed by Mario Botta form a powerful urban space. The project proposes to replace the existing buildings with a second, greener and civic hub in dialogue with the religious one. A single low building wraps three sides of a square garden, always open to the public, with lawns, seating and permeable paving, which also hosts outdoor concerts and shows. The rounded forms of the auditorium and the large entrance canopy pay tribute to the apses of Botta's church.

On the ground floor, the library with its café, the music school (three group rooms and six individual practice rooms) and a play centre for 50 children open onto the garden; the play centre is the most sheltered part, with a portico, timber deck and its own garden. Below ground, the library continues with a reading room overlooking a sunken garden, media spaces, a youth room and storage for over 20,000 books. The roof is a raised public square with planting, pergolas, games tables and a lookout, leading to the 250-seat auditorium. A lantern-like lift tower, lit in different colours, signals what is happening inside.

All spaces are accessible and flexible and can operate separately. The building favours natural and recycled materials, lime plaster with recycled aggregates and renewable energy, with solar panels on the auditorium roof.