One of the most picturesque corners of
Genoa is the Truogoli di Santa Brigida (“Santa Brigida Troughs”), located in a
small square between Via Balbi and Via Prè, not far from Principe Station. They
were built in the mid 17th century to provide fresh water for the resident
population and shelter for abandoned children in the Sestiere in contrast to
the plague that afflicted the city of Genoa at that time.
The small square of the old wash troughs
is now hosting two small restaurants and craft workshops such as Arteviva,
which creates unusual and special objects, even in single runs, using modern
technologies such as the printing process by which a digital image is
transferred onto a rigid support (wood, cork, copper, glass, ceramic, metal,
aluminium, plastic) or onto fabric such as cotton or synthetic-based cloth. There
are many artists who collaborate with Arteviva and in its showroom in the
Piazzetta dei Truogoli you can see T-shirts, sweatshirts, posters, postcards,
paintings, pins in limited series, but also furniture, chairs, tables and glass
surfaces.