The Children’s City A real city, exclusively thought for children from 4 to 17, was born in Cosenza in The City, with its 33,000 square meter area, is certainly the largest area destined to young people currently existing in Italy: natural center of the politics on infancy and adolescence, it turns to assure rights and opportunities to children and teen-agers. Inaugurated in November 2003, the City has already recorded a strong answer on the territory, picking up adhesions from schools, families and citizens. Not a museum, not a baby parking but a creative meeting place, the City is one of the few Italian examples endowed with numerous proposals of diversion, going from the game to the art laboratory, from the collective moments to the individual relationship with the virtual dimension, from the being spectator to the being inventor. Interactive center of experimentation, the City aims at favouring the spirit of responsibility, autonomy and growth of children and teen-agers, as well as their sense of being active citizens. The City is divided in outdoor and indoor spaces, the last ones built in forms of caskets of various colours according to their finalities. The symbol of the casket has become the mark of the City itself; it derives from the old legend of the fierce Visigoth king Alaric, buried with his treasure and his horse, at the confluence of the rivers Crati and Busento. The caskets here evoke the metaphor of the treasure hidden in any boy and girl, which the City wants to discover, considering its children and teen-agers a precious resource for future. The red casket is the toy library, the yellow one is devoted to communication and shows, the white casket is the social area, while the blue casket is the laboratory area.

Panoramic view of the City

The Red casket (toy library) It is the area in which the inalienable right to the game is realized in all its forms and educational potentialities

The Green space: the gardens of the City

The White casket It is the social area of the City

The green space is naturally predominant and, very important thing, deals with a protected space in which the children can freely circulate