roberto conte captures italy's decaying modernist cattle market

roberto conte frames modernist, former cattle market in italy

Photographer Roberto Conte turns his lens toward the Nuovo Foro Boario in Italy, a massive, now mostly forgotten structure that once served as the main cattle market of Padova. Designed by architect Giuseppe Davanzo (1921–2007) and built between 1965 and 1968, the complex is an example of post-war modernist architecture. Today, the building is mostly abandoned, with worn concrete, rusting metal window frames, and a forgotten purpose.

In this photo series, Conte documents the building’s geometric design, which still stands out clearly despite its deteriorated condition, highlighting how its structure has endured even as the materials have aged and worn down. His images reveal the ambition behind the project, showing an attempt to rethink what a marketplace could look like by combining open and covered areas in a layout inspired by the temporary tents used in rural fairs and circuses.

all images by Roberto Conte

exploring the decay of Padova’s Nuovo Foro Boario

Roberto Conte’s photographs capture Nuovo Foro Boario in a transitional state, no longer serving its original purpose, yet not entirely lost to time. The Milan-based photographer’s images follow the contours of the architecture, exploring its surfaces and voids in a way that brings out the layered history embedded in the structure. The worn concrete and corroded metal joints are rendered with striking clarity, tracing the passage of time across the materials. In some photographs, shafts of sunlight cut through the skeletal grid, while in others, the slow advance of vegetation hints at nature’s steady, patient reclamation of the site.

The building was designed on a strict 10×10 meter grid and was one of the first in Italy to use prefabricated components on such a large scale. While the columns were cast directly on site, other parts, like the beams, wall panels, and secondary supports, were made elsewhere and assembled on location, which was a major technical challenge at the time. Interestingly, the entire layout is rotated 45 degrees from the main road to create usable open areas around the building and to make the interior flow more efficiently.

Roberto Conte turns his lens toward the Nuovo Foro Boario in Italy

a modernist relic by giuseppe davanzo

Located in Padova’s Chiesanuova district on Corso Australia, the Foro Boario once sprawled across an enormous 200,000 square meters, 45,000 of which were covered spaces designed to accommodate up to 3,500 heads of livestock. The concept behind the project was to create a built environment drawing inspiration from the temporary structures of traveling circuses, village fairs, and rural cattle markets. Davanzo interpreted this ephemeral energy through a large-scale tent-like design that used a prefabricated structural system and an expressive roofline, rising from 2.8 to 13.3 meters in height.

Despite this pedigree, changes in livestock trade regulations led to the decline of the market. By the late 1980s, activity had all but ceased, with temporary uses following. A floriculture association occupied parts of the space, and the surrounding grounds became home to circus events and the city’s Festa dell’Unità. Yet the main structures gradually fell into disrepair. Today, large sections of the complex are used merely as storage by the municipality, while the rest waits for a future that remains uncertain, with rumors of redevelopment, including the potential arrival of retail chain Leroy Merlin, circulating for years without resolution.

this massive structure once served as the main cattle market of Padova