CASTELLO ROCCASCALEGNA

This lighting and redevelopment project of part of the ancient village of Roccascalegna in Abruzzo was born after the achievement of first prize in the international competition promoted by YAC.

The topic of the competition was to imagine the fortress for uses related to star observation by inserting accommodation and useful services.

Edward Lear paintings of ancient settlements of Abruzzo show as Nature and Construction can dialogue and participate together  to build the scenery and the collective imagery of a  place.

The main challenge of adding new architectures in a landscape where the issues of historical and local relevance  is so strongly-rooted, where apparently nothing must be done.

How a new contemporary need can translate into an architectural gesture, both respecting the history and  adding value to the existing?

Preservation/Addition

The project takes as its starting point the choice of  preserving the fortress, not to affect the existing landscape and to keep intact the image of  the huge Rock below the Castle and the buildings of Roccascalegna.

The only  intervention is due to the need of  providing the fortress the accessibility for all, because of this the project places a new tower: a "symbolic" reconstruction of the access door of the castle.

The new intervention will be placed at a distance from the fortress, at the foot of  the Church: a new wall, protecting the Church, and on the top of it a Belvedere square, looking at the fortification and at the infinite mountains.

The theme of the wall remember the ancient need of protection from enemies and wilde animals;  in the project turn on in the idea of a limit in which tourists, protected from the natural forest, can breathe, meditate, observe, listen to the immense silence of this place.

The wall and the fortress dialogue together from distance, the distance to understand each other, to respect the history and value  the contemporary, the distance to appreciate the spaces and the scales of the Landscape.

In between the silence of the Nature.

Urban side/Natural side

The drawing of the wall and the entrance to the fortress comes from the study of the urban contest.

The castle and the church divide the territory in due different backdrop: in the south part the main actor of the landscape is  the historical settlement, in which the buildings are founded on the bare rock,

In the north side the fortress overlook wild forest and the infinite mountains.

Therefore, the project shows is sculpted high and thin forms on the south part, following the existing image of the town, whereas on the north side, the wall open itself to the nature and to the immense landscape. As the fortress is settled on a spur, in the same way the wall draw an artificial spur for the church. 

to the Fortress

The study of the existing paths and the heights, drove to the project of a lifting system to make the Fortress accessible for all. The projects wants also guide the tourist along the paths to discover time by time the different points of view of  the territory.

The first access is at the foot of the wall, at the end of the village, From this point, trough a lift, the tourist can reach the observatory houses and the Belvedere square at the top of the wall, where can appreciate the Panorama of the Majella mountain and the distant view of the Fortress.

The access walk continues on a path that approaches to a Portal under the fortress.

From here the lift to the highest part of the Castle is drawn as the completion of the ruins, a "symbolic" reconstruction of the access door of the Fortress. 

The more private and intimate function are in the wall, the observatory houses  are two floor apartments, ending on the top of the terrace with a spherical glass observatory room; these caps are reachable from the apartment, they are thought as places where to stay and think, observe the stars, listen at the silence with a glass of wine in a private situation.