Designed by the Italian architect Renzo Piano in 1992 as part of the celebrations marking the five hundredth anniversary of the voyage of Christopher Columbus, the Bigo is a striking glass-and-steel panoramic lift on the harbour of Genoa, raising visitors forty metres above the water for a sweeping view across the old port and the city beyond. The name and form recall the bigo, the heavy derrick once used to load and unload sailing ships on the dockside, a piece of working maritime equipment that has been refashioned as a piece of harbour-front art. Several radiating arms reach out from the central mast, with the lift cabin suspended from one of them in a glass cylinder that rotates slowly as it rises. The ride takes about ten minutes from base to base, with the cabin pausing briefly at the top while the platform completes a full turn. The view takes in the curved roofs of the Aquarium of Genoa beside the lift, the long line of the inner port lined with warehouses and yachts, the red-tiled rooftops of the medieval city and, on clear days, the hills behind and the open sea in front. The structure forms part of a wider scheme to open up the old port to the public, transforming what had been a fenced-off industrial waterfront into a busy promenade of attractions, restaurants and walking routes. Other elements of the Piano-designed regeneration include the Biosphere greenhouse and the cotton warehouses converted into cinemas and exhibition halls. The lift is operated by Costa Edutainment, the same company that runs the aquarium, and tickets are available separately or as part of a combined visit. The view is at its most striking in the late afternoon, when the sun catches the warehouses and the harbour begins to fill with the activity of the evening. Quick, affordable and architecturally distinctive, the Bigo offers visitors to Genoa a vantage point unlike any other on the waterfront, and the rotating motion as the cabin rises is engineered for maximum effect, turning what could have been a simple viewing platform into a small piece of harbour theatre.

Type: Activity

Address: Calata Cattaneo 5, Genoa, Italy

Website: https://www.acquariodigenova.it/bigo

Opening Date: 15/05/1992