Fiera di Bologna

[3][4] After WW2, in 1947, the local chamber of commerce set up the Ente Autonomo delle Fiere di Bologna; however, it didn't have a fixed location yet, but trade fairs were held between Montagnola park and Palazzo del Podestà.

[6] The winning project was that of architects Leonardo Benevolo, Tommaso Giuralongo and Carlo Melogran;[7] works began in 1964 and the following year the 29th Fair of Bologna, inaugurated by the then Prime Minister Aldo Moro, was the first to be held in a permanent venue.

[8] At the end of the 1960s the city authorities, worried by massive gentrification and suburbanisation, asked Japanese archistar Kenzo Tange to sketch a master plan for a new town north of Bologna; however, the project that came out in 1970 was evaluated as way too much ambitious and expensive.

[9] Eventually the city council, in spite of vetoing Tange's master plan, decided to keep his project for a new exhibition centre and business district.

[12] In 2002 EAF turned into "BolognaFiere Spa", a joint-stock company that is the fulcrum of a regional fair system that includes also Modena and Ferrara, with a combined total of 200,000 square meters of gross hall capacity,[13] of which 105,000 in Bologna alone.