Piero Rossi Cultural Center

Piazza Piloni
32100 Belluno (BL) | View on Map
Municipality: Belluno

Tel. 0437/27030
E-mail: centroculturale@dolomitipark.it

The former fire station situated in Piazza Piloni, in the heart of Belluno, houses the Cultural Center “Piero Rossi”. This is not a traditional Visitor Center, but a meeting place for both tourists and residents. Here it is possible not only to find information on the Park, but also to stop and have a drink with your friends, have a snack based on local products, or purchase traditional foodstuffs coming from other Italian protected areas.
With the organization of temporary exhibits, meetings, concerts, and other cultural events, the structure works both as an info point for the tourists visiting Belluno and the Park and a meeting place for residents dedicated to cultural animation.

Services:
At the Piero Rossi Center you will find:

  • a cafe offering tastings of local typical products labelled with the Park’s “High Quality Brand”;
  • a space dedicated to children with babysitting service;
  • a shop with publications, clothes and gadgets of the Park;
  • a shop with local food and handicraft products labelled with the Park’s “High Quality Brand”;
  • free WiFi Internet connection


About Piero Rossi
Piero Rossi – after whom the cultural center was named – was born in Rome in 1930, his parents were Enrico, construction foreman in Friuli Venezia Giulia, and Virginia from Cavarzano.
When he was 13 he went back to Belluno with his mother and he soon found himself adult tackling the “Tiziano” Classical High School, facing his father’s untimely death and taking care of his ill mother. He studied and worked at the same time, and while working by the labour union he graduated in law at the University of Padua.
He worked for 30 years by the ASCOM (traders Association) in Belluno, also becoming a very active director who fostered both trade and tourism within the province, thanks to innovative and far-sighted actions. Since 1950s he managed to also follow his hobbies: he was a climber, a writer and a photographer. He was friend and collaborator of many European climbers, and he made the Bellunesi Dolomites be known on an international level, also planning the Alta Via delle Dolomiti N. 1.
He was President of the CAI section in Belluno and he is considered as one of the “founding fathers” of the Dolomiti Bellunesi National Park: his fight for its establishment lasted 20 years, from 1963 to 1983, when he untimely passed away. “A cultural battle – he wrote – and a contribution to save the cultural identity, that is to say the soul of our land and people…”. He fought with the firm belief that “there are basic cultural and social values which should be placed before any financial and utilitarian consideration”.


The former fire station: a hundred-years-old history in the heart of Belluno.
Until the first half of the 1970s the building that today houses the “Piero Rossi” cultural center was a fire station.
The most ancient part, situated in the southern side of the courtyard, was built between 1907 and 1910 to house the town’s warehouses.
In the 1920s the northern building was built to accommodate the keeper.
In 1930 the whole building became a real fire station, and the tower for the firefighters’ training was build according to the project of the architect Riccardo Alfarè.
The wing of the building that closes the court, today the cultural center’s café, was built in 1920 and it hosted the firefighters’ vehicles. In the first half of the 1970s the firefighters moved to the new station in Mussoi, and the buildings, which were not kept up any longer, underwent a gradual decline.
In 2009, thanks to the interventions carried out by the municipality of Belluno, to the Dolomiti Bellunesi National Park and to the support coming from the Cariverona foundation, the building was given back to the public.

Monday-Tuesday-Thursday, Friday and Saturday: 7.00 a.m. – 9.00 pm
Wednesday: 7.00 a.m. – 2.30 p.m. 
Sunday: 10.30 a.m. – 7.00 p.m.

Entrance fee: Admission free