Spiritual Architecture

The workshop will provide an opportunity for practical synthesis through which to test all the notions that will be provided by the other teaching modules, guaranteeing strategic responses to a real architectural project. The workshop, conducted in collaboration with Franchi Umberto Marmi, will look at the reuse of an old disused quarry at the famous marble quarries of Carrara. Excavated in the heart of the Apuan Alps and overlooking the magnificent shores of Massa, the Carrara quarries are a marvel of interaction between man and nature, as they are the result of a terrific landscape, sculpted and shaped by centuries of excavation and extraction. This place, thanks to its anthropisation, really is one of the most evocative landscapes on the planet, where immense steps, geometric voids, gaps and multiple levels sculpt mountains as white as the snow that frequently covers them. In this same place, centuries ago, artists such as Michelangelo or Canova chose their marble blocks to sculpt masterpieces that have written the history of art. Places that naturally suggest a feeling of spirituality and recollection, thanks to their historical and scenic charm, emphasised by the majesty of environments whose scale greatly exceeds that of human beings. Therefore, they are a privileged context for conducting a design dedicated to the space for transcendence. In the immaculate heart of the Carrara quarries, at Ravalunga,students will have the opportunity to create a place for the spirit: an interreligious place of meditation, where - regardless of one's faith, each visitor can feel welcome and have an experience of spiritual elevation, embraced by those eternal values of which stone is the most natural and faithful guardian.