Nestled in the heart of the Corsican mountains, a six-century-old building has been enhanced by an elegant copper extension. Designed by Amelia Tavella.
Rebuilding without contradicting the memory of the past. A problem faced by many architects, and a challenge that this Corsican architect, based in Aix-en-Provence, has brilliantly met. Proof of this lies in her tour de force at the Saint-François convent in Sainte-Lucie-de-Tallano, in Southern Corsica.
As Amelia Tavella explains: “I believe in higher and invisible forces. The Saint Francis convent in Sainte-Lucie-de-Tallano, built in 1480, embodies this belief. Perched high on its promontory, it was a defensive castle before becoming a place of prayer and retreat, chosen by monks aware of the site's absolute beauty. Faith merges with the sublime.”
Bordered by an olive grove and facing the island's mountains, the building, composed of two sections, was partially in ruins, like a body missing a limb. Through her architectural gesture, Amelia Tavella did not wish to erase this episode, but rather to emphasize it: “I chose to keep the ruins and replace the torn-off, ghostly part with a copper sculpture that will become the House of the Territory. I walked in the footsteps of the past, linking beauty to faith, faith to art, circulating the spirits of the past toward a form of modernity that never alters or destroys. The ruins are marks, vestiges, imprints; they also speak of foundations and a truth; they were beacons, cardinal points, guiding our axes, our choices, our volumes.”
This modernity is embodied in an elegant copper mashrabiya that mirrors, almost symmetrically, the silhouette of the building opposite it, combining metal and stone, two seemingly disparate materials that nonetheless harmonize beautifully. Too cold, metal? The architect sees in this copper screen "a gesture of gentleness" that captures the light, reflects it, and "returns it to the heavens like the prayers of monks and the faithful addressing the Almighty."
A rare project, which is now in the running for the European Union's Mies van der Rohe Award for Architecture 2024.
