Andrea Botto's Photographic Diary of Renzo Piano's Genoa Bridge

A new book titled 'Reviviscenza. Un ponte su Genova' (Rizzoli, 2020) documents the construction of Renzo Piano's new bridge in Genoa, which replaced the collapsed Morandi Bridge. The volume combines three elements: an institutional matrix, an architectural component featuring a brief but poignant interview with Piano, and a photographic narrative by Andrea Botto. Piano describes the bridge as a 'Genoese' structure meant to unite the two banks of the Polcevera simply, clearly, strongly, durably, and poetically, citing poet Giorgio Caproni's line 'Genoa of iron and air.' Botto's photographs capture the atmosphere of death and life without sensationalism, including daytime and nighttime images, landscapes, details, and work notes. Each image is dated and interspersed with testimonies and working notes, forming a collective iconographic diary. The last photo, taken at dusk on September 19, 2020, shows the bridge integrated into city life. Botto, born in 1973, is a Ligurian photographer whose work here traces a path of deconstruction and construction punctuated by human presence, such as a half-eaten focaccia left on a steel structure.