Ruin Everything! Leaving the Eternal City
Every year, millions of tourists visit the historical center of Rome. This project offers an alternative to the typical sightseeing, by leading them on a hiking path along the Tiber River towards the old port. Inspired by Piranesi’s maps and capriccios, the project examines the value of ruin and entropy, through fantastic architecture visualized in collaged hand-drawings.
Rome is founded upon layers of history which makes it a concrete example on an architectural collage. Pilgrimmage, Grand Tourism and long weekends has been filling out the city with curious tourists, and has done so for hundreds of years.
This project creates a new journey on one of the many roads that leads to - and out of - the Eternal City. Along what used to be a critical logistic nerve, the Tiber-river path 'Via al Mare' serpents towards the ocean. On the 35 km. hike, the visitor is exposed to ruins of all times; modern hippodromes and roman bridges.
This project does not only focus on Rome as a physical site, but also as a theoretical outspring. Inspired by Piranesi's 'Vedute di Roma' and his collage-like capriccios of archeological excavations, the project aims to combine a classic landscape-focused architectural proposal, with an art-theoretical project that digs into the well of fantastic, visionary architectural representations through highy detailed hand drawings.
Visual rhetorics
Piranesis Vedute di Roma is a sort of post cards dealt to the Grand Tourists of the 18th century. They use distorted perspectives unrealistic scales and strongly curated scenery, which often lead to a disappointment people went to see the sights in real life. I have through collage and hand drawing created modern replicas, telling the story about the sights as they appear today; crowded and overrun with modern technology.
Reclaimed Terrazzo
With thoughts towards the term critical regionalism, the materiality of the insertions is examined in a 1:1 scale. By collecting disposed material from a specific site, that is ceasing to exist, the colours and materialities of a place, is distilled into a humble monument.
The reclaimed terrazzo uses a mix of granulate and about 20% cement. The monoliths has a polished and a rough surface, creating variation in decay.
The fantastic cartography
The map measures 1750x1260mm and is originally composed of 3x3 A2 drawings. The format is inspired by the Nolli-map, which is also split into different sections and collected in a folder, to make it easier tranported.
The map is handdrawn. Like Piranesis 'Imaginary Prison'-etchings, they have been scanned, layouted, printed several times, to find a good balance between scales and situations.
Insertions
The aim of the project is to compose a map that leads the hiker along the Tiber whilst telling the story of ancient, recent and future ruins. The map tells the story of the hike, and allows you to experience it yourself. Along the route, the reclaimed terazzo is used to create small structures, that makes the hike more accessible; shelter, toilet, water-post etc.
The materiality creates a collected aesthetic throughout the 35 km hike, whilst the small ruins are gonna go into dialogue with it's surrounding landscape over time, creating an internal history for the project.
A hikers guide to Via al Mare
The full-size cartography is scaled down to a 1/3 size foldable map, pocket size! Text-elements are added to guide hikers to public transportation, supermarkets and the insertions are now also an indication of placement. The addition of the hikers guide creates offers a very realistic aspect to the project, whilst meeting the meta level of the representational parts of an academic proposal.
