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The Challenge
A salt-saturated coastal site with high water table and protected archaeological strata. Foundations could not penetrate below 1.8 m without triggering a heritage review.
On the project
Three travertine vessels gathered at the edge of the Atlantic · a procession of weight, void, and salt air.
Three monolithic travertine vessels, each housing a different temporality of remembrance: the recent, the ancient, the unknown. Visitors move between them through a sequence of compressed and expanded courtyards.
The travertine was quarried in Tivoli and shipped by sea · a deliberate slowness, an act of weight. Each block was hand-selected for veining; together they read as a single geological event.
Inside, the air smells of salt. Atlantic winds enter through deep-set apertures and circulate slowly, cooling the chambers and carrying the sound of the surf.
