The City Centre and the Urban Planning. The Formation of Modern Bergamo

The Fondazione Teatro Donizetti has enabled Università degli Studi di Bergamo and Politecnico di Milano to document, with new research, the relationship between the City of Bergamo and its most emblematic public building. This journey was undertaken concurrently with the restoration and recovery works on the Theatre named after the Bergamo composer Gaetano Donizetti. The specific intention of this book is to witness how the history of this architectural complex, both majestic and fragile, has been shaped by the enduring presence of a construction site that, in many aspects, seems endless. The book analyzes the events that have accompanied the evolution of the city’s society and culture, documenting the continuous interplay between the theatre and urban scenes. Over the past two centuries, the Donizetti Theatre’s passage through recurring moments of crisis serves as a formidable lesson, which is worth returning to after the tragedies of the pandemic and the celebrations for Bergamo/Brescia, the Italian capital of culture in 2023. The paper specifically analyzes the city's planning instruments and the role played by the Donizetti Theater in the progressive structuring of the flat part of the city of Bergamo.