Δία - Greek preposition meaning to and throughout, or movement, diffusion in space and time.
The objective of the project is to investigate the relation between nature and man, history and landscape, in it’s different shapes and shades.
The Sanctum lays under the castle of Monsanto, in front and aligned with the medieval arch, creating a horizontal axis that emphasizes the existing man-made landmarks and the mountains.
The project is divided in three moments. The intent is to create a flowing continuity in time between this three moments and spaces, remembrance of different aspects of life.
In the first moment an anthropic platform that collects water generates a mirror that reflects the surrounding and the sky, giving a perception of infinite and endless landscape. In this condition man dominates nature in an ethereal moment.
A staircase cuts the platform and serves as entrance, leading the visitors to a
underlying space, where the curved slab in a first moment gives a sense of compression and gradually opens to the landscape.
At this point the encounter between man and nature takes place and the memory of Monsanto is recalled. Like a dolmen, three massive rocks support the curved concrete slab and three concrete volumes attached to the rocks generate the three main spaces.
In the interior spaces the rocks, human artifice and light encounter, creating an atmospheric and suggestive moment. Three circular lightwells opened to the sky allow the visitors to admire the sky and the evocative light.
The main and final room, the Sanctum, offers the most suggestive and introspective space, for its dimensions, the dramatic light that illuminates the curved concrete walls and the huge natural rock and the shadows.
At last the moment of contemplation of the landscape, in between artificial and natural, in a moment of peace and connection with nature.
