Coriandoline – friendly houses for boys and girls

Via Mussini Sante, 9 - 42015 Correggio
Phone 0039 0522 694640
Fax 0039 0522 691042
www.coriandoline.it

The story started way back in 1995 when the Correggio-based cooperative Andria (named after one of Italo Calvino’s invisible cities and with a long history of building human-friendly ‘dream’ neighbourhoods) decided to create a neighbourhood especially for children.

The history of Coriandoline

Children: an odd target for the construction of something as solid as houses. But in 1995 the architect who designed the project, Luciano Pantaleoni (previously the cooperative’s Director as well) together with pedagogy specialist Laura Malavasi, set the project in motion inviting 12 local schools to collaborate with them. Thus, 700 children helped by 50 teachers, 2 pedagogy specialists and a further 20 participants including architects and engineers, “pedarchitects and archigogists” (the term used by Luciano to describe his and Laura’s new role in this project) started putting down their initial ideas on paper and video.

In the neighbourhood, besides the see-through house with glass panels all around, there are also doorbells decorated with the names of the household members (all of them, including cats, and not just surnames), and in the tower houses, in addition to the lifts, there are also helter-skelter slides next to the stairs. Then there is the Coriandoli Workshop (coriandoli means confetti in Italian) which is used as a common room for meetings and gatherings and acts as a sort of documentation centre of the project. All the drawings made by the children and Luzzati, who worked with them, are assembled here alongside the plastic model and, hanging from – or rather nailed to – the walls, are some old manuals.

Guided tours

(for adults)
UIT Ufficio Informazione Turistica di Correggio
via Borgovecchio, 39
Phone 0039 0522 631770
turismo@comune.correggio.re.it
www.turismocorreggio.it

(for children) 
Ludoteca Piccolo Principe
via Fazzano n. 9 
Phone 0039 0522 643811
ludoteca@comune.correggio.re.it