An open-air museum is a journey through time. It creates the illusion of transporting the visitor to another era. The visitor immerses himself in a place that has been preserved, recreating its past down to the last detail. Any new and discordant element can break this illusion and spoil it at any moment.
We propose not to build so as to preserve the atmosphere of the place. Building landscape. Taking advantage of the sloping site to locate all the necessary uses of the programme through a fold in the terrain. Concealing the programme to make it less disturbing.
The form is in the past of the place. An old engraving reveals a circular shape that may have existed near the mausoleum. A form that belongs to the place and is not unfamiliar. Starting from this geometric shape, we built a circular void, a new access square to the museum, which builds a large porch and suggests the gesture of welcoming the visitor with open arms.
The experience of entering the depths of the ground and emerging to the surface at a different time. A concrete cave with large skylights that suggest a different world on the surface. The visitor will penetrate the ground and, following the light, get to the circular elevators or the helicoidal ramp that unfolds little by little as it reaches the surface. A journey that takes us from the outside to the darkness, back to the light of the surface. The illusion of being in another era.
Only one material: earth. Or what is the same, concrete. Concrete that will build the walls, the ceilings, the pavements, the skylights. Concrete that will age at the same pace as the place. Absorbing life through all its pores. As if it had always been part of that place.
The visitor will ask himself: has this always been here
