Paul

> Savonarola is a residential district full of vitality. Out from the touristic tour but very close to the city center. Here life is good and the demand to acquire a property is high.
> The crisis of tourism since the emergence of the Covid-19 showed the city center being emptied. Empty of tourists, students but also of inhabitants. But here, people continued to live day after day, always passing through or around the Savonarola square. For sure, there were more activities here than around the famous Duomo.
> In particulary, the Savonarola square gives us a pist to understand why this district is loved. This square allows us to describe the concept of "open and inclusive city" developped by Richard Sennett in his book « Building and dwelling : Ethics for the city ».  
> So, we can say that the quality of the place is strong. Because many different activities take place into it or around it, at different moments of the day and of the year. For example, the square sound differently when summer's coming...
> This soundwalk is a sonic photography and a composition of how this area sounds during an ordinary january week.

This record capture the night's falling on Savonarola. It's reserved to the inhabitants of this district like a sweet privilege.

In the first plan, we can appreciate the birds flying and singing. At times, the neighbours open a window or a door, someone goes to his balcony to smoke one cigarette. 

In the background, we guess that the inhabitants and the children are going back to their home. They make a stop to the park. Drivers use and abuse to their klaxons. Scooters sneak between the obstacles of the street. A siren of the ambulance resonate. This is how a day of the week sounds. 

We can also perceive this Savonarola texture through his relative silence. 

Gradually, this kind of silent ambiance takes place until the ring of the Savonarola bells. Here we go, the night felt...

During the last summer, one of the hottest ever registred, a man lived here on the floor. What was his perception of the street ? How he received all these sounds day after day ? 
Look at the differences between how the courtyard sound and how the homeless place sound. And, do we really know how many sound's there are when we're not there ?

At 6 p.m., the Savonarola church is ringing, ringing, ringing...
Into this common situation, we can see the priest Savonarola, represented by the statue in the middle of the place, stands here in silent, and turn its back to the church. Why ? On this public bench, we're doing the same many centuries after him.

This soundwalk during a sunday afternoon. 
This place gives to the inhabitants the opportunity to think freely, without the need to be careful. So, their senses can have another activity, another way to perceive and to get in touch with their environment. And then, thoughts also : In which place can we think about our vulnerabilities and say it ?

After the school, children let their voices feel to the world, under the attentive supervision of the parents. These sounds let us understand the space around them. Here, it's a large open place. Thanks to this kind of informations we can understand in which environment we live and then bring or not some adapted accomodation.

Here, there is a metallic box and inhabitants come here to put inside some useful stuff for other who need it. It's a point among others, which is working for the public quality of hospitality of the city.

At every time of the day, some people come to the place and have a break. They design their own soundscape place with music, it's an example of a temporary semi-privatisation of the place. There are many different ways to engage this kind of process in our everyday life.

There are many ways to cross this square. Alone, as a group, with headphones, by bicycle, by trottinette, by running, with a dog. But, very often, people use this moment to go somewhere, so they are walking and in the same time have a calling or do some phone's and finger's activity.

Cars passing by. 
The cars delimite the place. This place is open to the streets. There are also some little bushes, and grass, in order to delimite the square to the rest of the place. The limit is caracterised, maybe first of all, by the strength of the cars sounds. Cars are the real limits of the space and design a refuge place in the heart of Savonarola's district.

9. Cars and the extremities of the square

Siamo nel sottopassaggio e sopra c'è il treno che passa.

Savonarola

12 ECHOES

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The Echoes

1. From courtyard

2. The homeless place

3. Chiesa Savonarola

4. Soundwalk Giulia's thoughts

5. Il grido

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