From October the bank becomes a free body gym and weights also in the vault

Transformed the interior of the 1930s building between Corso Italia and Largo Riborgo: a trip to the construction site. Opening in autumn

TRIESTE. It’s not every day that you train in a bank vault. The bad guys would, however, be disappointed by the fact that the safe deposit boxes of the Thirties appear desolately empty and the access doors, with a thickness of 50 centimeters, open wide: too late, the loot had already been transferred when the Trieste branch of the Banco di Napoli had ceased to operate in the beautiful location on the corner between Corso Italia and Largo Riborgo (formerly Malta).

On the other hand, instead of valuables, the customer, who will no longer be a holder of movable wealth visiting his possessions, will find tools to exercise free body and to lift weights: with a metaphor, a treasure of health. Because Rsg group, a German fitness giant, bought the building, built at the end of the 1930s to a design by the Banco technical office, to transform it into a sort of gymnastics building. Four levels – underground, ground floor, first and second – which required an investment of 2 million euros, to convert the 2,000 square meters of the building’s surface to a new destination.

After the break from Covid, Rainer Schaller, leader of the Berlin-based group, and Vito Scavo, Italian partner, have resumed the initiative in Trieste: the goal is to inaugurate the headquarters when the autumn takes off. Riccesi took care of the building and Allegri from Cuneo.

The idea is to accompany and integrate physical activity with a series of attentions such as to generate a feeling of general relaxation: the woman / man saunas, the deejay – the “Muretto” of Jesolo will provide – to set the background music, the bistro where you can eat light food, such as a smoothie. The rooms, where the exerciser will concentrate on the movement, will be frescoed by a duo of Berlin artists called “Ron Miller”, who will start working in the coming weeks. The tone – the architect Samuele Frosio, responsible for construction for the client explains on the phone – will be that of the club, of the happening.

At first, a thousand accesses per day were expected, a forecast recalibrated on a daily turnout of over 500 visitors. They will have 200 machines at their disposal, the rates still to be calibrated, which in any case will be announced with the advertising campaign launched to announce the opening. Confirmed the brand, “John Reed”, imagined as a traveler who landed in Trieste where he met James Joyce.

The interior – as can be seen from the images by andrea Lasorte – is still an evolving construction site. Guiding us on our visit is Tilman Schmidt, a Francofortese architect, who graduated in Weimar where the faculty is named after the Bauhaus. The project seeks to save what is interesting from the 1930s construction, from fixtures to wooden floors. On entering on the left, the beautiful spiral staircase is clearly visible, perhaps the most attractive architectural feature of the building. “We seek a balance between old and new,” says Schmidt. Among the curiosities, to include a bunker with probable function of anti-aircraft shelter.

Under the palace flows the Rio Pondares, one of Trieste’s “hidden” streams. In the excavations carried out to erect the palace, the remains of a Roman bridge came out, which was “absorbed” in the renovation works of the then Corso Vittorio Emanuele III, later Corso Italia. –