Consert Hall in the abandoned Church

Project idea

Could we bring back to life one of the most important religious buildings of Southern vItaly? We tride to answer this quastion in our architectural project that was choosen for our project of the year in our university. In our project we tried to carefully regenerate architectural structure of the church, as well as reorganize an interior space by choosing not a traditional way of preparing design. This project was created with the intent to preserve the link between architecture and nature throughout the time. The main aim was to reuse this space of this abandoned Church as a Concert Hall.

Project description

The idea consists of regenerating the space and preserving the spirit of the place of the Italian town. We chose the method of devizualization of the new architecture, using translucent and reflective planars. The interior design aligns with an exterior, by using glass as a main material we tried to avoid conglomeration of the constructions and gangways. The main feature of the redevelopment was a radical change in the orientation of functional spaces. For a long period of time we had been thinking about how to accommodate everything in the most convenient way and finally went from the method "how it cannot be". In this version, the main entrance is organized from the apse, and the narthex is given to the artists ' rooms. Café is situated on the ground floor. In addition to the main hall, there is also a small lecture hall on the first floor. Our idea of the thematic incorporation of architecture and nature continues in the interior, we do not hide the holes in the ceiling, but emphasize and preserve them as part of the history of the place. The entrance area is glazed and marked by external stairs to the first floor. The first floor has an accent staircase that invites you to the walkways on the second and third floors. Materials are glass with a copper frame, so they are easy for visual perception. In our project, we decided to regenerate the dilapidated tower, and because of that we could make view platforms outside the walls of the church on both sides. In addition to that the common space of the apse will become a great viewpoint to watch sunsets.

Technical information

All the main ruined parts - the roof, the walls, vaults, and arches became visible again but now only in the glass and copper to show the contrast of old and new but in the same time to save the essence of “genius loci”. The existence abundance of greenery in the interior shows that nature always prevails over the people creations, but at the same time it forms the dynamic of the interior and give us a sense of calm.