Architecture has always played a fundamental role in the identity of Chiesi Farmaceutici, a company founded in Parma in 1935 from the entrepreneurial impulses of Giacomo Chiesi, a pharmacist with a dream of research. The first “architectural event” linked to the plant was, however, tragic: the laboratories were in fact almost completely destroyed by bombing in 1944. But immediately after the end of the Second World War, the company’s activity resumed, and with it its growth. Giacomo Chiesi evaluated the possibility of buying land to build a “real factory”. The new production plant was inaugurated in 1955, with 50 employees and expanded production of successful medicines.
It is the now historical industrial site in Via Palermo, Parma: an area characterised by great modernity from the outset, with a specific focus on the quality of work spaces and adherence to the most avant-garde design principles.
In 1966 Giacomo Chiesi passed the helm to his sons Alberto and Paolo. The company was still small, but already facing the international market. With them began a process of expansion and internationalisation, which took concrete form with the opening of the first foreign office in Brazil at the end of the Seventies and then with the arrival in dozens of countries around the world: from Pakistan to Bulgaria, from China to the Scandinavian countries.
Despite this growth process and international outlook, the company’s roots remain firmly in the Parma area, and in some ways the architectural development of the area represents the evolution of Chiesi’s values and identity.
Between the end of the second and the beginning of the third millennium, at different times and with different roles, the third Chiesi generation entered the company, the children of Alberto and Paolo: Alessandro, Andrea, Giacomo and Maria Paola. Their entry opened up further new lines of research and development: Chiesi became a pioneer in the world of regenerative medicine and in 2013 entered the world of biotechnology, positioning itself today at the pinnacle of innovation in the bio-pharmaceutical sector.
Not even at this stage does the focus on architecture fail. Three years after the official inauguration of the new headquarters, which flanks the existing Research Centre, the Chiesi Group aims to continue the process of urban redevelopment of the historic industrial site in via Palermo, Parma, and create an innovative “business playground”: a hub open to the corporate community and its partners, transforming the site into a veritable landmark, in which to investigate the interconnections between people’s health and the health of the planet.
For this reason, the Italian multinational biopharmaceutical company – which is now among the top 50 pharmaceutical companies in the world – launched an international Call for Ideas a few months ago entitled “Restore to Impact”, with the aim of identifying innovative, evolutionary and transversal concepts that could serve as guidelines for the regeneration of the Chiesi industrial site in Parma. Chiesi thus proposes itself as a cultural platform and promoter of reflections on Open Innovation and built architecture.
“The rapid changes we are witnessing in all fields and disciplines today require the interconnection of increasingly specialised professionals who have evolving skills. But they also demand workplaces that are aligned with current notions of cooperation, inclusion, Wellbeing and where research and training are supported by state-of-the-art technologies. Innovative spaces where people are always at the centre.” says Andrea Chiesi, Head of Special Projects at Chiesi Farmaceutici.
Flexibility, adaptability over time, porosity understood as the ability to dialogue with the physical and social context and as the quality of the landscape and public spaces in relation to connectivity; but also sustainability in technological, environmental, economic, business and innovative terms: these are the criteria selected by the “Restore to Impact” Selection Committee to evaluate the ideas submitted.
Participation in the Call was important, with almost 500 users registered to the project’s web platform in the two months it was open – from March, 1st to April, 30th. This is the result of intensive promotion and dissemination of the initiative, which reached more than one hundred countries worldwide. A total of 31 concepts were selected for the final phase of the competition, of which 26 for the Professional Category and 5 for the Under 30 Category. Of these, three were awarded in each category, with an Honourable Mention also being given for the Professional Category.
Among professionals, the three prizes and the Honourable Mention were awarded to project teams, either multidisciplinary or composed of architects only. All were based in Italy, two specifically in Parma. This is an indicator, beyond the Call’s intentions and the international audience it reached, of how closeness and familiarity with an urban area, its history and critical issues are fundamental elements for the development of an intervention concept such as the one stimulated by “Restore to Impact”, stretching beyond the boundaries of architecture and open to the generation or regeneration of a profound dialogue between business, territory and community.
For the Under 30 Category, the three prizes were awarded to undergraduates or recent graduates of Architecture from three different countries, Italy, the Netherlands and Australia. A geographical openness that denotes a different methodological approach of the three concepts, more inclined to propose flexible solutions in space and time.
The Selection Committee comments on the results of the initiative as follows: “What comes before architecture? The needs of a society. Restore to Impact is this: by launching a public competition to renovate existing buildings, the aim is to think collectively about how to approach the regeneration of a former industrial area, to create a beating heart of connectivity and to reflect on its relationship with the local community. The results of the Call for Ideas represent a layering of voices from which to extract… balance.”
