Archive of the ruin

In this project I would like to suggest a procedure that contemplates-on the presence of a ruined building and proposes a way of completing its fragmented matter. It is not intended to simulate a reconstructive preservation but in contrary to propose the act of constructing something anew as a direct interpretation of the precedent condition.

The entrance for the new building is taking the shape of a new staircase that is placed carefully inside the old villa. It replaces a later built extension that is now almost destroyed, while its steps follow the form of a pre-existing wooden stairway that could not be retained. \nIn continuation of that attachment a long corridor comes to connect the two buildings. Due to the height difference between the two courtyards, the corridor is initially submerged while later follows the slight inclination of the slope. Two windows reveal again punctually the old building and present to the possible visitor the spaces that he will later meet. \nWhile entering the new building, the visitor encounters two subsequent -yet contrasting- rooms. In the beginning a higher one looks solely the sea. Climbing up to the second one, he faces again the old villa. \nBetween him and the old façade an enclosed garden is cultivated with flowers from the mountains of the area. A remembrance to the practice of the old gardeners that were not able to introduce -at that time- exotic vegetation into the island and started instead to domesticate wild plants out of suburban locations. \nBy moving in between the 5 rooms, the visitor is not able to understand the totality of the building. Each one is developed in close relation to the others but with the intention to create completely different tensions. The visitor every time is questioned to either examine the old building through its individual elements or in contrary to deny its presence and live into the new addition. \nOn the exterior elevation of the new building a bronze door marks the entrance of the archival depository, a place where the visitor is excluded. It was drawn replicating into an other material the first wooden entrance of the villa.\nA nearly brown cement made out of the same soil that was used in the initial construction, strives to create the sensation of an unfinished and unpolished space.