“In almost no other city, is architecture so closely intertwined with the other arts as it is in Florence… immediately and universally recognised as the birthplace of the Renaissance, and thus many central elements of modern western civilisation. The Renaissance lives on in a city that in a real sense, both materiality and spirituality, continues to live off the investment in human capital it made at the height of prosperity half a millennium ago. The city’s problems start of the new millennium are many and acute. They are familiar to those who attempt to reconcile the numerous conflicting interests that both affect most of our historical centres: the constant need for restoration and repair to the historic patrimony; the difficulties of access and congestion; the high cost of living for the native residents; the loss of shops and amenities for those citizens who do remain. It is a familiar litany indeed, equally applicable to Venice and Rome, to Seville, Amsterdam, Prague, or Edinburgh.

As one of the main cultural and artists centers of Italy, the greatest challenge is the management of the vast influx of tourists”.

Richard Goy

In tandem with the Royal Scottish Academy John Kinross Scholarship, ‘A Poetic Archipelago’ proposes a series of ‘magnetic islands’ to highlight, expose and mediate effects of over-tourism in Florence through reclaiming native ownership of public space with crafted, lightweight timber interventions acting as the malleable formwork to support the stone urban fabric of Florence while dissecting the Renaissance city scale and crafts. Proposing a contemporary Guildhall made and occupied by local artisans while reinstituting a societal art collective, a structure lost during the Renaissance credited with funding many public amenities.

The contemporary craftsman is needed now more than ever, in our globalised and digital world we have lost ownership and connection with our cities. ‘A poetic archipelago’ offers a potential future for Florence, building upon a rich legacy visibly expressed though contemporary sensorial space to be shared with the modern world and a source of inspiration.