The reusing building is part of the Marzotto’s University Site situated inside the town medieval surrounding walls, still to-day, the historic centre of the city of Pisa [7].

This site is one of the few industrial archeology examples existing on the territory of Pisa; ex textile workshop, belonging to the company “Marzotto”, worked for about thirty years (1939­1968) marking the city industrial development. The site has now become a didactic pole of the scientific area as a result of a long recovery intervention, started more than ten years ago by now, on the various pavilions of the factory.

The pavilion “D”, behind the medieval walls from which it is about a metre far (Fig. 1), is the only one of the five buildings composing the old textile factory which has not yet undergone
a real recovery intervention, but just partial adaptations (i. e. Student Secretariate and four lecture halls).

The pavilion “D” is expected to undergo a recovery intervention resulting in its reuse as university library; in particular, the transfer there of the Library of Mathematics, Informatics and Phisics having, at the moment, their seats inside the pavilion “B” is supposed to take place. The library current site results to be quite critical both from an accessibility point of view, i. e. the structure is situated on the first floor of the building, and direction one, i. e. the co-presence within the same building of activities with different requirements, such as departments, lecture halls, offices, library, gives rise to coordination problems and limits, in the case of the library, the potentialities of the services offered to the users. The transfer into the pavilion “D” has to be, therefore, seen as the attempt of giving to the library an autonomous seat and making it more accessible and “visible” to the users.

The current state analysis recognizes within the building three different bodies (Fig. 2): a central one, characterized by four rectangular modules having the same dimensions (the lecture halls) and two trapeziform side wings (the Secretariate). The two side wings show a simple flat roof interrupted by small skylights, while the central body is characterized by four barrel vaults interrupted on the top by interesting lanterns, elements peculiar to the industrial architecture of the beginning of the twentieth century.

The four lanterns, with a very lengthy rectangular plan, show vertical large glass windows along the whole perimeter and an opaque slightly curved roof (Fig. 3). Since they are disposed in the east-west direction, the light penetrates through the lanterns only from the glass window facing south; as a consequence, the side facing north, inside, will turn out to be always the most lighted one, while the side facing south will result to be in the shade.

The recovery project (Fig. 4) provides for the removal of the central body from the medieval walls: in particular the two central bays shrink lengthwise creating, between the building and the walls (from which they are now about 7.50 m far), an open space enjoyable by the library users. Such an open space could become, in summer months, an extension, on the outside, of the reading room, situated inside the central body — the most significant from an architectonic point of view. The reading, studying and consultation room (including also a wide zone provided with open shelves) are organized into two floors as a result of the introduction of a mezzanine floor with a steel structure, placed side by side flanked on the existing skeleton and lying behind with the eastern and western facades, so that the originary architectural module could result to be always legible and the light coming from the lantern could filter out up to the lower level. A large glass facade at full length replaces the old opaque building envelope closing the building towards the medieval walls: in such a way the "town monument” becomes a valuable scenographic side-scene of the new reading room. In the side wings the library service rooms (i. e. library historical fund, warehouse, offices, services for the users) and two conference rooms are placed.