Cagliari, CIS

The headquarters of the CIS is located in an area between Diaz and Bonaria avenues, intended as a business center by the General Regulatory Plan of 1965.
The headquarters of the CIS is the result of the competition launched in 1985 with the aim of offering the city an “original and modernly conceived square”.
Despite the first prize awarded ex-aequo also to Alberto Sposito's team, the executive project was entrusted to the architect Renzo Piano, preferred because he considered “more responsive to the functional needs of the Institute and to the constraints of carrying out the work”. The building has a public part with pedestrian space and green areas (unfortunately missing the aerial tensile structure foreseen in the project), and a private one with a volume with low bodies, which follows the long sides of the available surface, and a third transverse and raised block.
Inside, special sensors record both climatic and external lighting conditions to automatically adapt the various environments, also equipped with flexible office spaces. Only the top level of the building uses precious materials such as copper and black and white marble in the function rooms.
The fully glazed body of the auditorium has the task of linking the public and private areas and has a room with about 250 seats. A floor with movable elements allows different configurations, including both a horizontal floor for exhibitions and the staircase with armchairs.
Orosei limestone (similar to that of Bonaria typical of the city, but now exhausted) was used for external cladding, for the paving of the square, for the slabs that screen the windows, for rainwater gargoyles.

Bibliography
A square for Cagliari. Architecture for the new headquarters of the Sardinian Industrial Credit, edited by F. Gurrieri, Venezia, Marsilio, 1986;
G. Loddo, Guide to Contemporary Architecture in Cagliari 1945-1995, Cagliari, Coedisar, 1996, pp. 41, 68;
R. Piano, Logbook, Florence, Alinea, 1997, pp. 100-101; F. Masala, “The new church of SS. MM. Giorgio and Caterina dei Genovesi di Cagliari between restoration and reconstruction”, in Genoa in Sardinia, edited by A. Saiu Deidda, Cagliari, CUEC, 2000, pp. 235-251;
F. Masala, Architecture from the Unification of Italy to the End of the 20th Century. Nuoro, Ilisso, 2001, sheet 173;
L. Zanini, “If a bank creates a square: the headquarters of Renzo Piano's Sardinian Industrial Credit in Cagliari”, in Arte Architettura Ambiente, 2, 2001, pp. 18-21.