HONORABLE MENTION
LX 004 – VESTA
Sante Simone (IT), Pietro Cagnazzi (IT), Nunziastella Dileo (IT), Alessandro Zappaterreni (IT), architects
Roma
In its socio-urban vision the project is highly provocative leading to an intense discussion among different positions in the jury. Especially the radical approach of creating a „complete“ utopia where social living in a peaceful setting meets heroic open spaces, agricultural landscape and collective facilities is seen not without doubts about the concept’s political approach. The harmonic community life is mirrored by the composition of the design, integrating a certain economy of doing things (appropriation and/or conversion of existing structures) and an urban strategy (how to link things). Though, for parts of the jury, the cultural ambitions and the totality of the design’s setting create the impression of a somehow violent approach, saturated with the mission of social engineering. Seen in this light, the relation to social utopia, memory, and cultural contextualization should be reflected critically. The religious mission – creating powerful impact by powerful forms – corresponds to the lack of „real tools“: the project relies on a poetical and strong text which finds its respective illustration in the black and white drawings. Concepts like interdisciplinary are put forward, yet parts of the jury see in these integral aspects the consequence of an approach that is devoted to a totality of control.