The Porto Vecchio of Trieste: History and Future
The Porto Vecchio of Trieste represents one of the most important sites of industrial archaeology in Italy related to port activity. It covers an area of approximately 601.403 square metres, extending from the outlet of the Ponte Rosso Canal to the peripheral settlement of Barcola.
It comprises five piers (piers 0, I, II, III, IV), 3.100 metres of quays for loading and unloading goods, twenty-three large buildings including hangars (originally 38 buildings), warehouses and other structures. And it is protected by a breakwater and is directly connected to the old railway of 1857.
The appearance of Trieste's Porto Vecchio is different from that of the ports in the Mediterranean area in that it reproduces, in the urban layout and construction rules of its buildings, the characteristics of the Lagerhäuser (parts of a city used for handling goods) of the ports of northern Europe, such as you can find until today in the  Speicherstadt of Hamburg, Germany.
The Porto Vecchio of Trieste was built between 1868 and 1887, after an extensive planning phase, at the behest of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which was to provide Trieste with a large port capable of handling the hinterland of Austria-Hungary and its ambitious foreign policy too. (Only at the end of the First Worldwar in november 1918 Trieste became part of Italy.)
Porto Vecchio Trieste: the historical buildings
In the Porto Vecchio of Trieste, the port structures, warehouses, hangars, special buildings (hydrodynamic power station and electrical reconversion substation), with their types of construction, cranes and electromechanical equipment bear witness to an essential aspect of the city-port of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The warehouses and hangars, large single- and multi-storey buildings, arranged on three parallel axes, were equipped with cranes, elevators, hoists and other furnishings for loading and unloading goods; some had a „perron“ (ground handling platform) at the base, suitable for operations from railway wagons or vehicles.
Their construction, which was based on designs of the highest architectural quality and avant-garde techniques in the use of reinforced concrete in that time, is a document of the pioneering era of patents held by the great European construction companies that had their branches in Trieste (Hennebique patent of Ing. Odorico & C, Viennese patent Ing. Edmund Ast & Co, Wayss patent of Wayss, Freitag & Meinog of Innsbruck, patent of the Trieste company Ing. Geiringer and Vallon). The completion of the warehouses in the Porto Vecchio of Trieste lasted until the beginning of the twentieth century as it required extraordinary consolidation work on the foundations and quays.
Due to the value of the entire historic urban complex, the presence of the large period buildings and the handling facilities, Porto Vecchio of Trieste was protected in August 2001 by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities of Italy with direct and indirect protection restrictions and prescriptions in order to safeguard it and to allow the restoration of the entire area through design proposals that do not alter the existing structure.
Porto Vecchio Trieste: the Polo Museale del Porto di Trieste and the first restorations
The two recently restored buildings, the Centrale idrodinamica (hydrodynamic power station) and the electrical substation, make up the Polo Museale del Porto di Trieste (Trieste Harbour Museum Centre), an initiative promoted in 2004 by Italia Nostra with a path of realisation shared by the Friuli Venezia Giulia Regional Superintendency.
The Hydrodynamic Power Station is the most technologically valuable building in the Old Port of Trieste. The port of Trieste was one of the first ports in the world to be equipped with such a plant, along with Hamburg, Buenos Aires, Calcutta and Genoa. Built in 1890, the Porto Vecchio power station in Trieste is to be considered a masterpiece of industrial archaeology; even today, it still houses its prestigious machines (Breitfeld & Danek- Karolinenthal of Prague 1891) for the production of energy to serve the port's mechanical equipment.
For the necessary expansion of the already existing substation in the Hydrodynamic Power Station complex, the Electrical Conversion Substation was built next to the power station and connected to it in 1913.
This special building differs stylistically from the other constructions because it was built to the design of architect Giorgio Zaninovich, according to the stylistic characteristics of the Wagnerschule (Vienna). Inside, the transformer room, protected galleries, stairways, winch rails, electrical equipment and the arrangement of the furniture still confirm the dignity and prestige of that industrial architecture.
In these buildings, the historical heritage of the Port of Trieste will be collected, which, in addition to the entire monumental area of Porto Vecchio, includes extensive archive documentation.
Starting in 2012 to 2013, the Hydrodynamic Power Station and the Electrical Substation for the reconversion of the Porto Vecchio of Trieste were opened to the public by the Port Authority of Trieste with the contribution of volunteers from Italia Nostra.
In recent years other buildings have been restored by the Port Authority: Warehouse No. 1 on Pier IV, Warehouse No. 26, the House of the Small Administration and the entrance gates.
Porto Vecchio Trieste: the process of redevelopment and regeneration of the historic port district
Today the old area of the port of Trieste and the nineteenth-century warehouses are no longer suitable for functions related to commercial traffic and a process of redevelopment and regeneration is underway for new uses that, while respecting the historical identity, will allow their functional reuse.
If the constraints are not respected during regeneration, the entire historic port district risks losing its identity. It is not clear at the moment how the regional government of the right-wing lega under his local leader Massimiliano Fedriga, President of he region Friuli-Venezia Giulia, and the party leader Matteo Salvini will support the historical infrastructure of the port.
Sources: https://archeologiaindustriale.net/category/il-patrimonio-in-italia/; https://archeologiaindustriale.net/5242_il-porto-vecchio-di-trieste-storia-e-futuro/