Inside Manifattura Tabacchi, one of Italy’s biggest regeneration projects

Inside Manifattura Tabacchi, one of Italy’s biggest regeneration projects

Between the Renaissance wonders of the Uffizi Gallery and Brunelleschi’s Duomo, homegrown visionaries including Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, and fashion legends such as Guccio Gucci and Salvatore Ferragamo, Florence is not readily associated with the grit and grime of industrial manufacture. Yet a short 3km from the 15th-century cathedral Santa Maria del Fiore, a new manufacturing, life, work, study and culture hub is being constructed out of the empty shells of a vast 110,000sq m, 16-building factory.

Manifattura Tabacchi is one of the most ambitious urban regeneration projects in Italy. The heritage protected factory was originally commissioned by the government, built over a staggered period in the 1930s by the construction company that was owned by the now revered rationalist architect and engineer Pier Luigi Nervi. As the name shouts loud, the historic factory was dedicated to the making and packaging of cigar and cigarette products that were sold in volume to a smoke-happy populace, then oblivious to the dangers. Tobacco farming – alongside textile manufacturing – flourished in the region from the 16th-century onwards, but with global sales dwindling in recent decades, the factory shut up shop in 2001, the gates were locked, and the network of buildings fell into disuse.

“The site was a model factory and developed to include new features