The Municipality of Monaco recently celebrated the grand openning of their 8 year old project, the mighty ”Mareterra”. The idea of the project was first announched in 2015, while the to-go-order was given in 2016. Its architect Renzo Piano, in cooperation with the Prince of Monaco, Albert the II, decided to expand once more the teritory of Monaco, and this time, towards the sea.
”It’s one of the few times a country has expanded its teritorry without a war”, Prince Albert proudly stated. Due to Monaco’s limited area, the need for residences is enormous, and thus the idea of expansion towards the sea was born. Marettera expanded Monaco by 3% and is now considered to be the most expensive place in the world to live.
What the Mareterra encompasses
The complexion encompasses restautants, private residences, villas and small townhouses as well, while at the same time is surrounded by the new paved promenade. In this way, the everyday people can walk and gaze at this luxurious neighbourhood, in which most people will never live. And for a good reason. In the Mareterra, the apparments range from 100.000 to 150.000 euros per square metre, making their purchase, impossible for most people.
How Eco-Friendly Mareterra really is?
Now, regarding the Mareterra, The Principality proudly promotes its eco-friendly vision: forty percent of the expansion is dedicated to nature, with one thousand trees implanted, creating an urban forest by the sea. Yet this green facade raises questions: can artificial land reclamation ever truly compensate for the marine habitats it replaces?
While Mareterra stands as testament to Monaco’s architectural ambition, it also symbolises the ongoing tension between development and environmental preservation in the Mediterranean. To be more accurate, from the construction of the Mareterra, 60,000 spare metres of sea level and marine biodiversity were destroyed.
This raises the question indeed: Is the Mareterra truly ecofriendly? An engineer working in a contruction company in Monaco for Marettera, Brice Blondet, aswered negatively. While measures were taken for the construction to be as eco-friendly as possible, on can not ignore the tones and tones of concrete that were dumped to the sea.
For now, Prince Albert announced that this is the last expansion that Monaco will ever do, but with the increasing demand for more residences, the promise might be hard to uphold.
