Coriandoline: Community Designed by Children


Coriandoline: Community Designed by Children

"Le Coriandoline" is a small neighborhood located on via Loris Malaguzzi.  In 2001 the project to design and build the neighborhood using children's ideas won the Peggy Guggenheim prize. 

 Planning began in 1994, involving 12 schools from around the country. In all, the project incorporated the ideas of 700 children (helped by 50 teachers, 2 pedagogiste, and another 20 people including architects and engineers). In keeping with the Reggio Emilia educational and cultural tradition, children were invited to reflect on and share their ideas of an ideal house.  Typical of children everywhere, they wished for houses like castles, houses with jewels, and houses that resembled tree houses.  They wanted everything to be colorful and insisted that each house should have its own atelier - a place devoted to creation. Adults then incorporated the children's ideas to create this little neighborhood, with a famous Italian children's book illustrator designing the exteriors. This project is an example of how children and their ideas are valued in Italian culture.

Recognition with the Guggenheim Award for innovative architecture.
         
                 
                    Children's original drawings (visible on the right) and the artist's  renderings framed on the left.
The castle house.
                                         

                                        

                                                    
                                                   

A house with jewels.
                                       


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