Three months have gone past since the night the river Cervo swept away Hydro, the Terme Culturali, part of Accademia Unidee’s classrooms and other areas of Fondazione Pistoletto (for a total loss of 1300 sqm of exhibition, performance, rehearsal and storage space). As mentioned more than once on the virtual pages of our Journal, Fondazione Pistoletto’s team immediately activated to get the strengthening and reconstruction works under way, at the same time launching the crowdfunding campaign Protect Cittadellarte on the DeRev platform. Numerous have been the operations carried out in the last few weeks: as reported in one of our previous articles, a passage was opened giving access to the riverbed of the Cervo, which allowed the operators to move the containment reef close to the water and build a ramp; the removal of the debris created by the collapse of the former Hydro space was also completed. Last Monday, the works moved onto a new phase: the strengthening of the wall of the former Hydro space with a jet of concrete. The company hired for the job has been following the directives of a structural engineer, with the view of completing the operation on 23rd December, when the scaffolding will also be removed.
Emanuele Bottigella, from Cittadellarte’s Architecture Office, has talked to us about the most recent developments: “We’ve started the necessary investigations to operationally plan the containment wall, and the topographer is carrying out the altimetric survey,” he said, “and not only that, in the next few days a company recommended by the geologist will drill the riverbed to perform a geognostic test to assess how far deep is the rock layer, for us to be able to evaluate how to build the foundations of the new containment wall”. The plan is to complete the operational project for the wall between January and February, while waiting for approval by the relevant bodies (the superintendence, the City of Biella and Regione Piemonte). “In spite of the snowfalls and the freezing weather,” Bottigella added, “we are proceeding according to plan: our schedule has been respected, and everything is going well without any setbacks”.
