Why fragment?

The ‘fragment’ is a part detached from a whole, an element that leaves in itself hope, a new whole.

The fragment today can be seen as a product of the culture of consumption, of the mechanisation of action, the contemporary world itself is composed of fragments gone mad, enjoyed in a distracted manner, on the move, for us the fragment is the possibility of relating to history and time, creating spaces for the contemplation of the architecture that surrounds us and the Roman remains that have come down to us.

We are in a fragmented, stratified place, showing different fragments of history ranging from the 2nd century B.C. Roman period where the area of the sanctuary was a place of worship, to its industrial transformation and then its use as a paper mill. The project stands as a new fragment within the site, a fragment that becomes a means of relating these apparently different nuclei. We have therefore chosen by means of a homogeneous covering to recompose the shattered. “To ‘secure’ it from the mechanised dispersion of action, from today’s frenetic world; to calm it, to reassure it, by means of the most primordial gesture man has ever made: building a roof.

Preliminary studies have led us to trace the figures, characters and elements that have always characterised the place. The classical type, translated into a modern key, played a fundamental role in our operations, becoming an echo reverberated in the composite metrics that marked out steps, spaces and volumes.

Two elements in particular, the orthogonal square mesh coffered ceiling that hovers in the interior space and the columns, which, rising in the elevation, create a strong link with the piers of the pre-existing triportico. A large glass window and a pavement breaking through the portico delineate the entrance.

A long corridor characterised by hollowed-out lacunars accompanies the visitor inside the building in an alternation of light and shadow. Automatic was then the division into two, the right side for the services, the left side for the exhibition.

Few gestures characterised the project, with a conservative will we kept some spaces unchanged, making the various visible fragments stand out, a reinterpretation of time.

Here a new volume first intrigues, then directs the visitor towards the entrance.

The south-facing façade is emptied of the substantial mass that had filled it in unsuspected times, an alternation of slats that punctuate the size of the façade, framing a direction that for centuries was concealed by the massive wall that was there. The gaze has been reopened towards Rome.