Fruition in new function: il recupero del Ford Point per la rigenerazione del paesaggio di Marina Bay, Richmond, CA

The recovery of the Ford Assembly Building, currently known as Ford Point, prevented a testimony of industrial architecture from being forgotten, turning the assembly plant of a car into a best practice example of sustainable urban regeneration, aware of the testimonial values of pre-existence. The Richmond plant in California was designed by Albert Kahn, the leading architect of the Ford Motor Company for the construction of several production buildings; the plant summarizes the pioneering solutions adopted by Kahn since the construction of the Packard Motor Company’s No. 10 plant in Detroit, in 1903. Thanks to the aims of the designers to insert new uses and functions to revitalize a symbol of industrial architecture – so rich in its constructional characteristics properly linked of the productive community of Henry Ford – the result of the recovery is an architecture that gives back the sense of a place and a community, shaped by the will to connect what came before to the contemporary experience.