In the last fifty years the urban development of Mestre has deleted the original weft of the historic centre without introducing a new design of the urban spaces. The interventions carried out in different historical moments have been superimposed or juxtaposed with no distinction, thus creating a town with blurred traits. The loss of identity of the central core of Mestre has gone hand in hand with the loss of its relationship with the water, the river and the channels that used to outline it as an island being filled up with earth, and its relationship with open spaces that characterized the exterior of the walls. The projects produced are intended to redesign the structural lines of Mestre downtown – consistently with the territorial set-up and with the traces of its history - in light of new city, roadway and transportation forecasts. The urban tram lines that will cross Mestre downtown and the station of the regional underground in Olimpia require new technical and specific spaces, but especially modify the system of relationship among urban spaces, producing opportunities for centrality. It is the overall structure of the town that has to change, modifying the perception of Mestre downtown. The definition of the guidelines for the design of the historic centre of Mestre takes into account the territorial foundational facts around which the town had originally been constructed and the close relationship between urban structure and geography of the place, constituted essentially by the presence of natural and controlled water. If with the process of modernization the spaces related to water have become increasingly marginal - to the point that they became urban rears - the redevelopment of the historic centre planned in these projects invert this trend, rehabilitating the viability of the banks, which become real foundation along the river from Gazzera in San Giuliano. The project areas located along the river Marzenego are thought to be a set of new public spaces that, in sequence, turn the town back to the river. This implies the reopening of the Rio Muneghe and the rehabilitation of the commercial function of piazza Barche, through a concerted reading of this space in relation to the Canal Salso. The two sets of public spaces linked to Marzanego and the original channel system delimit the "limits" of the old town, within which a very dense city unwinds, characterized by a special system of "street-squares" that are North-South oriented. The project to redevelop the area between Via Dante and Via Capuccina aims to be an auction with strong urban character, able to extend the space density and collective functions of the historic centre and to act as a new centre of gravity of the part of town lying between the historic centre and the train station, in order to balance the weight of the axes of Corso del Popolo and Via Piave.
