Aldo Rossi's Controversial Piazza del Bacio in Perugia, 40 Years Later

Forty years after its design, Aldo Rossi's Piazza del Bacio in Perugia remains a divisive landmark. The square, built between 1983 and 1988 on the site of the former Perugina chocolate factory, was part of a broader urban development plan for the lower city. Rossi won an international competition in 1983 to create a new civic center in the Fontivegge district. His design incorporates metaphysical elements and references to historic Umbrian-Tuscan piazzas, such as a sloping brick expanse, a central fountain, and a temple-fronted administrative building (the Broletto) with a clock. Rossi preserved the factory's brick chimney as a nod to local memory. Despite its conceptual ties to Perugia's history, the square has never been embraced by residents, who find its aesthetic alienating and its location problematic. The project was also left incomplete, missing a planned theater and part of a residential building. Today, as architectural discourse turns to 20th-century restoration, Piazza del Bacio demands renewed attention as a work by Italy's first Pritzker Prize winner.