Rome Concrete Poetry Hall
1922-UUM-ROM.IT-2016
Architect: Vacuum
Client: Beebreeders
Status: Competition (2016)
Clasification: 1 prize
Location: Rome, Italy
Coordinates: 41.911079, 12.508970
Climate: Mediterranean, Temperate
Material: Concrete
Environment: Urban
Visualizer: Studio
Scale: Small
Types: Intervention, Public space

The proposal for the Rome Concrete Poetry Hall want to denial of the architecture as object, fully accepting the subterranean nature of the project and opting instead to create space through subtractions and boolean operations beneath the plaza. The project lays bare the site, revealing only a composition of rectilinear cuts and a circular hole in the ground.

The visitor descends a ramp into one of these cuts, initiating a complex sectional procession through a series of vaulted volumes and auxiliary spaces, culminating at its deepest point in a large domed assembly hall. This composition of pure spatial typologies – the promenade, the vault, and the dome – are analyzed and deployed to frame the terrestrial plane, instead of the celestial sphere. Through this act of burial, these familiar architectural forms are transformed, creating an abstract mirror beneath the streets of the city.

The architectural achievement of the project lies in its sacrifice of light in favor of shadow, revealing the dimensions of depth through a single oculus at the apex of the dome. This aperture re-registers the visitor’s relationship to the ground above and allows light to track and diffuse, like a subterranean Pantheon, across its smooth concrete interior. The abstracted sanctuary serves to free artistic production from the constraints of the architectural object, creating a contemporary crypt enabling the birth and death of the word and the act.

Competition: Rome Concrete Poetry Hall | Team: Gino Baldi, Serena Comi | Post date: 27/05/2017 | Views: 5.851