Il padiglione della gente:
the people's pavillion
Cultural centre
trastevere, rome
2018
The careful and functional division of programme into separate buildings allow music, theatre, art, exhibition, archive, cafe/bar and commerce to work cohesively within an architectural statement celebrating Welsh culture and reinstilling pride into a town which has been lost architecturally and psychologically to the power of
Conwy castle.
The ‘Church’, ‘Cloister’ and ‘Crucifix’ are characters emerging from a flooded romantic garden behind a ‘ruined’ polycarbonate wall. The drowning of culture by the English is embodied through a landscape adaption of Millais’ ‘Ophelia'.
A festival hall with an historically oppressive backdrop provides a defiant response to context.
Axes misalign with the urban plan in a series of religious forms contained within a hortus
conclusus.
Religion drives all aspects of the design, from the inspiration of form, to the usage and sacred experiences within.
A barrel vault inspired performance space provides unique acoustics for a congregation sat within an adapted medieval church plan.
The laypeople enter via the narthex and sit in the nave whilst performers move about the altar ceremoniously underneath the north sky sunset crucifix.
