ReUse Italy - Reuse the Fallen Church
DIRUTA REVIVAL
Time - as John Ruskin would say - has given Chiesa Diruta the unique appearance that distinguishes it in present. While respecting the historic building as it was built, we intend to keep its formal and functional layout intact, seeking a sensitive and minimally invasive intervention. Our aim is to create a Concert Hall on the grounds of the religious building without compromising the architectural character of the place and its free fruition.
By its very nature, the liturgical plant is perfectly in line with the performance activites that intended to be held in the building. For this, the rightful functional compliance consists in enhancing the plant as it has been designed in the past. At the same time, the structural state of decay gives us the opportunity to restore the damaged shell of the building, modernizing the original perimeter that was partly lost due to time. Yet, this intervention is aimed at preserving precisely the state of time and wants to enhance the appearance of the church as it is today: open to the outside world. Through space, time is acknowledged as the main protagonist of the history of a place.
The ultimate aim of the project is to highlight the character of the building, avoiding to cover up what is already present. Therefore, we choose to design a basement volume that hides the secondary function required by the auditorium under the ground, while giving structural stability to the foundation. As such, the volume performs the main function at its surface and it takes up the centrale nave in reference to the former religious functional space. Finally, there is an attempt to place the user inside a Concert Hall that never loses contact with history, but rather remains subordinate to it and its ritual.
Our vision is to reinterpret Lucanian rupestrian architecture, designing with a regard for Basilicata’s long-lasting archetype. We intend the historical brick shell as a rock to be discovered, with the will to represent the church within an innovative paradigm, here expressed by the use of concrete as a modern stone.
We intend to restore an environment that is at the disposal of both the local community and foreign tourism, letting the space take the form of a flexible filter that performs a recreational function when necessary, yet remaining a truly “open air” surface that can be freerly used or visited in the absence of performances.
