MILITARY MUSEUM, SARDINIA
FINALIST MENTION - WINNING ENTRY
There are places in which history is extremely meaningful.There are spaces where memory becomes nearly physical, tangible and where the memory of the past is stunningly real and intensively present. The military fortress of Capo d’Orso in Palau is one of these places. It is sculpted in the granite of a monumental coast. From its bastions, the luxurious yachts sailing in the Mediterranean Sea evoke the English galleons, which chased the Napoleonic fleet in the same sea stretch centuries ago. Here wars have ended, soldiers are gone. However, the barracks, the shooting stations, the arsenals have lived on. They are forgotten architectures that have survived their own purpose. They are the legacy of difficult times when the pages of history were written by the steel of bayonets and cannons.
MATTER´s proposal is working with nature vs. the man-made. The qualities of the specific landscape of The Battery of Capo d’Orso consists of rigid volumes and lines inserted into the organic lines of the nature. In reading these lines, we observe a beautiful clash OR, a beautiful COHESION between the strictly controlled lines of the walls of the fortress and the organic, natural and wild landscape.
Together these two elements blend into a fascinating system that creates surprising, exciting and unpredictable spaces.
In this landscape we have placed the museum as a natural extension to the original path that leads to the battery.
The museum grows out of the path as a hidden secret pouch and the visit to the new building becomes a natural, fluid extension of the procession towards the fortress. The building has been placed secretly in this majestic landscape and frames the colours, the sea, the vegetation, sky and the fortress.
Following the already existing language of straight rigid lines of the man-made on site, we insert rigid structural openings to the roof of the new museum. This allows for nature to take over the built structure, to dissolve the big roof and to reclaim the building.
This create a beautiful unison, where building and nature perform together and thresholds between nature & man-made are blurred.
The path, which consists of quirky corners and akward shaped viewing platforms ends in the main part of the fortress. The powerful Memorial Marker has been placed at the end point destination and marks the importance of the place and it’s history. By raising the memorial marker from the context, it becomes a focus point, which lead visitors from both land and sea towards the fortress, but also stand as a strong Memorial that honours the events that took place here.
History, memory and landscape merge into something powerful. Land and sea, history and future become one.
There are places in which history is extremely meaningful.There are spaces where memory becomes nearly physical, tangible and where the memory of the past is stunningly real and intensively present. The military fortress of Capo d’Orso in Palau is one of these places. It is sculpted in the granite of a monumental coast. From its bastions, the luxurious yachts sailing in the Mediterranean Sea evoke the English galleons, which chased the Napoleonic fleet in the same sea stretch centuries ago. Here wars have ended, soldiers are gone. However, the barracks, the shooting stations, the arsenals have lived on. They are forgotten architectures that have survived their own purpose. They are the legacy of difficult times when the pages of history were written by the steel of bayonets and cannons.
MATTER´s proposal is working with nature vs. the man-made. The qualities of the specific landscape of The Battery of Capo d’Orso consists of rigid volumes and lines inserted into the organic lines of the nature. In reading these lines, we observe a beautiful clash OR, a beautiful COHESION between the strictly controlled lines of the walls of the fortress and the organic, natural and wild landscape.
Together these two elements blend into a fascinating system that creates surprising, exciting and unpredictable spaces.
In this landscape we have placed the museum as a natural extension to the original path that leads to the battery.
The museum grows out of the path as a hidden secret pouch and the visit to the new building becomes a natural, fluid extension of the procession towards the fortress. The building has been placed secretly in this majestic landscape and frames the colours, the sea, the vegetation, sky and the fortress.
Following the already existing language of straight rigid lines of the man-made on site, we insert rigid structural openings to the roof of the new museum. This allows for nature to take over the built structure, to dissolve the big roof and to reclaim the building.
This create a beautiful unison, where building and nature perform together and thresholds between nature & man-made are blurred.
The path, which consists of quirky corners and akward shaped viewing platforms ends in the main part of the fortress. The powerful Memorial Marker has been placed at the end point destination and marks the importance of the place and it’s history. By raising the memorial marker from the context, it becomes a focus point, which lead visitors from both land and sea towards the fortress, but also stand as a strong Memorial that honours the events that took place here.
History, memory and landscape merge into something powerful. Land and sea, history and future become one.