Costa Concordia Lighthouse Memorial
1958-BUD-IT-2015
Architects: Benjamin Nicaud, Paul Bourigan, Berta Cuso
Client: Matterbetter
Status: Competition (2015)
Location: Giglio Island, Italy
Coordinates: 42.438806, 11.097627
Climate: Temperate, Mediterranean
Material: Stone
Environment: Seaside
Visualizer: Studio
Scale: Small
Types: Landscape, Monument, Observatory

There are wounds that never heal. And so, the act of remembering becomes the only possible and necessary care. A memorial is this eternal care for a wound that will never heal.

The lighthouse turns the landscape into the scenography for the metaphysical encounter of past and present, and of the future to come. It talks not only about the memory of the Costa Concordia tragedy, but about the contingent condition of the human being in front of the nature.

Facing the point where the tragedy started and taking the direction of the accidented cruiseship, the vertical stone monolith, elemental as the most ancient monuments, stands in the coast, between Earth, Sea and Sky. A symbolic scene of man’s solitude facing the mythological forces.

The original fatal breach that the rocks did on the ship is now radically materialized in a break in the landscape. This becomes a full body experience through the path and the solid lighthouse, expressing the dangerousness of the land. The first impression of the visitor is that of entering a wound in the rock, penetrating the site and losing any external reference, only to discover again, after the vertical ascension inside the tower, the universal immensity of the sea and the sky. The narrowness and the dark that dominated the night of the catastrophe are reformulated to create a strong physical experience and remind the essentiality of the light.

The functional obsoleteness of the lighthouse is transformed into a silent presence that stands in the coast line, erected with the stone removed from the breach, a timeless, permanent guard that watches out for those who live between earth and water, a sundial that marks the hours and that does not let us forget.

Post date: 18/06/2017 | Views: 5.401